It’s already November?!

Wow! I can’t believe it has been so long since my last post. It seems like it was just the beginning of the semester and now it’s nearly time for finals. The months have rushed by in a flurry of studying and practicing clinical skills. Since the last time I’ve written, my classmates and I have learned many of the skills needed to perform a comprehensive eye exam. When I look back on everything we’ve learned, I feel so accomplished! Just this week, we completed our Binocular Indirect Ophthalmoscope (BIO), and fundoscopy practical. If you’re not familiar, these are the skills necessary to perform a retinal exam to assess the health of the back of the eye. Seeing the retina through a lens and not an
image on the computer for the first time was such an awe-inspiring moment. And it’s actually still really cool (even after getting tested on it)! If you want to get kind of an idea of the view I see using my lens, check out my retina selfie! –>

Last week, for Epsilon Psi Epsilon, EYE, we had our fall party. The theme this year was “Diplopia in the Dark.” There were a lot of cool neon clothes that glowed in the black lights and some interesting glow-in-the-dark contact lenses….. (aka Fluorescein!)

This week, our class also participated in a group project contest in ophthalmic optics lab. We got to make our own ophthalmic lenses! The goals for the project were to get as close to the prescription and to present your groups finished product in the most creative way. I liked being able to hands on see the process of cutting lenses in a smaller, in-office scale, especially after visiting an enormous lab (VSPOne) earlier in the semester. VSPOne was an impressive facility. After working in a practice that regularly sent jobs to that lab, it was cool to see where they had been coming from and the process the went through before reaching the patient. Anyways, here’s a picture of my group and I with our project! Our theme was “Fry High” and we made the lens tray into a school locker!

Me, Heather, Nick, Amber, Dee, and Noor: Team Fry High!

Our finished lenses!

For now, I’m just hanging in there until finals! They’ll be here sooner than I know it, so it’s time to get in the mindset. Until then, I’m really looking forward to the BuckEYES super important game against Michigan State this weekend and spending Thanksgiving Break with my family and friends that I haven’t seen in a while. As the holiday approaches, it prompts me to think, “What am I thankful for?” I’m so thankful for all the loving people in my life, wonderful classmates, good health and the opportunity to study optometry at such an amazing school. Thanks again for reading!