Meeting Minutes: 9/29/15

A student brand ambassador from Kaplan came to tell us about “The Optometry School Journey with Kaplan.” This program was designed to teach us about admissions, the OAT, and how Kaplan can be a support along the way. We took a quiz about where we are on the path to optometry school, which then gave us tips for what to do next. Kaplan offers different course types, from self-paced, in person, or live online to private tutoring. The speaker noted that more exclusive content can be found at www.kaptest.com/oat, where there are other great resources and additional information.

Meeting Minutes: 9/15/15

We heard from Dr. Heather Chandler, who has been on faculty with the College of Optometry since 2007. She started out in veterinary ophthalmology, then had the opportunity to begin researching and teaching at the College of Optometry.  The majority of her job now is bench top research, focusing specifically on corneal wound healing and cataracts.  She also teaches ocular anatomy to the first year optometry students, along with ocular physiology in the graduate program among other courses.  In her anatomy class, she likes to use a “drive through the tissue” visual approach, with very magnified images of the different tissues of the eye.  She shared some of these images with us. She still does a lot of work at the veterinary school, such as training the ophthalmology residents.  Chandler noted that the cases she sees in the animal world are much more extreme versions because the animals cannot complain about their eyes. When asked about working in academia, Chandler said that it is great because everything is always different and changing.

Meeting Minutes: 9/1/15

At our first meeting of the school year, we heard from Dr. Zadnik, the Dean of the College of Optometry.  She told us about her career, and how she rose up the ranks from an associate professor here at the college to now being the College of Optometry’s fifth dean.  She spoke about a new concept that is emerging here at Ohio State — interdisciplinary health care, where all of the health sciences at Ohio State would work together to provide the best comprehensive care.  Next, we heard from our club advisors Sally Haltom and Sean Gilbert, followed by Justin Griest and some current optometry students who all gave an overview of what to expect from the club and all of the resources available. Students were then taken on tours of the optometry school.

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Photo courtesy of The Ohio State University College of Optometry Facebook page.