Meeting Minutes 04/20/2021

Today we heard from current optometrist who have different specialties. Here are the minutes:

Dr. Flom and Dr. Earley

  • Flom
    • Low vision rehab
    • 25 years
    • Johns Hopkins clinical research and UC Berkeley for Opt school
  • Earley
    • Associate Dean for Academic affairs
    • Chair of admissions committee
    • Professor for 31 year here
    • Went to Opt school at OSU and did phD at OSU, undergrad at Northwestern
    • Specializes: pediatrics (started in peds), vision therapy, traumatic brain injury and neuro-optometry mostly now
  • What makes up your specialty?
    • Recommends 6-9 months for first eye exam. For peds, have to like working with babies and have to like working objectively
    • Have to stay on top of the science in your specialty (ex: treatment of lazy eye) Have to make sure that you “change with the times”
    • Specialization is more common because the field of optometry is growing
    • Have to like a challenge to go into neuro
    • You have to like the patients you’re working with
    • Don’t let the challenge scare you though
    • Low vision:
      • Works with patient who are “partially sighted”
      • Have mild-moderate-severe visual impairment
      • Providing equipment, strategies, and devices for them to function at a higher level
      • Can’t really “correct” anything, but can help
      • Help get some independence
    • How is your speciality different day by day and from a regular optometrist
      • Binocular vision and vision therapy: there’s a lot of variety in the patients (ex: age)
        • Likes that most of his patients have already been seen before
        • See patients where “nothing more can be done”
        • Don’t see as much comp exams and contact lenses, it’s more challenging work
        • “The most challenging patients are the most satisfying”
      • Low vision
        • Really high stakes (will I ever be able to drive? Will I be able to read again?)
        • Special telescope glasses to help with night driving, can help see if you qualify for disability
        • Thrill of walking into an exam room and not knowing what you’re going to get
        • Have a national network and involvement in a national organization
      • Earley says opt is the best career in the world
      • What do you want out of your career?
        • Not going to be stressed all day long and want to prescribe glasses – great! Private practice is great
        • When you become a specialist, you’re going to see a lot more restrictive patients
          • Only the patients who need you are going to come see you. As a low vision specialist, you aren’t going to see patients who can see fine.
          • The more specialized you’re going, the more restrictive in the patients you see and it’s going to be more challenging
          • You’ll get a feeling for who you are and who you want to be as a doctor.
        • How did you decide on your specialty
          • Earley:
            • “I get to race kids down the hall. They wouldn’t like that at low vision”
            • Started out as pediatrician interest. Was in medical school to begin with but couldn’t have fun with medical side of pediatrics
            • Loves working with kids
          • Downside of your specialties
            • Earley
              • Allow of neuro complications. Come to you with the hope that you can help but you can’t always help
              • Have to work with them to “reset” their goals
              • Optometry with a heavy dose of psychology built in
            • Flom:
              • High pressure but can be done with support
              • Low vision devices aren’t covered by insurance – economic challenges
            • Legislative stuff
              • Ohio has great collaboration between the college, the state board, and the OOA/AOA
              • A lot of faculty are involved in legislative stuff so if you’re interested in trying to change something, there’s a lot of support in the faculty
              • We have to educate about optometry
              • You can write your senator or your congressman about scope expansion and encourage change
                • Listen to students more than they listen to doctor because you can always leave and form a practice elsewhere if things don’t change
              • Realeyes presentations
            • How does a specialty change your education
              • Doesn’t change your education at Ohio State
              • Smaller college and a lot of patients for every specialty.
              • Everyone rotates through every specialty to get experience
              • You don’t get to opt in or opt out of things, you get to learn everything about optometry. At OSU, doesn’t change your opt education
              • If you’re interested in specialties, go to into a residency – primarily ocular disease residencies
                • Gives you a one year focus on your specialty
                • Example: if you’re doing a peds residency, you’re just going to see peds patients
              • You don’t have to do a residency, you can just build up experience over time
              • In optometry, by definition there is no “specialization”
                • You can’t necessarily advertise yourself as a specialist
                • Controversial – becomes political when you start talking about specialization
                • Maybe this can become a legislative thing?
              • Academy of optometry has diplomate programs that help you become an “expert” in a specialty

Meeting Minutes 03/30/2021

Today we heard from a panel of current OSU Optometry students. Here are the minutes:

Students speaking:

  • Rochelle
  • Hanna
  • Kinsley
  • Abby
  • Liz
  • Madison
  • Jaime
  • Rami

 

  • Working as a tech is beneficial but not completely necessary. You’ll do fine if you don’t work at a practice. Do shadow though
  • Most beneficial things from working in a practice
    • Patient interaction
    • Will lead to good letters of recommendation
  • How did they know they wanted to do opt without working as a tech
    • LOTS of shadowing in different offices
    • Good work/life balance
    • Not as much schooling as med school
  • Optometry isn’t just “one or two” and prescribing glasses and contacts. “Can never really get bored”
    • Versatile
  • Workload in undergrad vs opt school
    • A LOT
    • Will take some time to get used to
    • Not going to have as much free time
    • May have to change the way that you study
    • But it’s worth it and you can do it
    • A lot more material
  • What did you do in undergrad that prepped you for opt
    • Well-rounded application
    • Leadership/club positions
    • Hobbies and interests
    • Being involved
  • How did you get letters of Rec
    • Someone who knows you
    • Maybe a prof. of a smaller class size?
    • Pick someone that you shadowed a couple times or a prof that you had in class a couple times
  • How did you write personal statement
    • Prob not stressed as much, but still make it good
    • Don’t let it overwhelm you
    • Start off with a story/values
    • Try to show that you researched the profession (more for the interview but still)
    • Brag about yourself without sounding cheesy
  • Studying tips
    • Find what works best for you
    • One person may be able to re-read slides while another re-writes everything
    • Don’t let other’s ways of studying influence you
    • Don’t put a time on it – you’re just going to overwork or stress yourself out
    • Know when to take breaks
    • You’re learning to remember and apply not learning to memorize and pass a test
    • “6 hours of classes. If you try to do 1 hr per class, you’re at 12 hrs for the day, so just keep in mind it’s about efficiency” -Jaime
    • Every class has different requirements
    • Learn to recognize when you’re not being efficient
    • Engage with your learning
  • Application/why OSU
    • Apply where you want to go
    • Offers in-state tuition after 1st year
    • Get to see all specialties
    • You’re going to be well prepared
    • Learning to interact with patients in the first year by doing pretesting
    • The alumni always talk about how great OSU is and they still talk to classmates and professors
    • It’s a family
    • Apply places you can see yourself living for the next 4 years

Meeting Minutes 03/16/2021

Today we heard from Jen Bennett about the interviewing process! Here are the meeting notes:

Jen Bennett

Bennett.1075@osu.edu

  • There’s no perfect candidate – bring your uniqueness to the table
  • Don’t interview without practicing. Even 15-20 minutes of practicing can make a difference! It’ll make you more comfortable
  • Look at interviewing as storytelling
    • You already have your own expertise (your own stories)
    • Leadership potential
    • Take a look at interview skills
    • Your empathy and exposure to diversity
    • Resiliency
    • USE EXPERIENCES TO DISPLAY COMPETENCY, SKILL, AND POTENTIAL
    • Self awareness
      • A source of confidence
      • Can talk about something that you know well
      • Get to know your accomplishments, missteps, your personality, your core values, your goals, your strengths and weaknesses, your competitive edge
      • Explore assessment tools to get to know yourself better or meet with a counselor
    • Stories bring specificity and they’re memorable/hold attention
    • List your experiences
      • Use your resume, mentoring, jobs, internships, hobbies, talents, research, etc.
    • Develop 6 basic stories
      • When you solved a problem
      • A time when you overcame a challenge
      • When you made a mistake (be selective)
      • When you were a leader (how did you impact others?)
      • When you worked with a team
      • When you did something interested
    • Crafting your stories
      • Highlight your advantage
      • Have a beginning/middle/end
      • Vary the setting
      • How you impacted the outcome
      • How you turned a negative into a positive
      • Some high school experiences are okay (like big moments) but try to have more recent examples
    • Practice telling your stories
      • To a friend, to yourself in the mirror, use a video
      • Create a cheat sheet to study and for your interview if you draw a blank
    • STAR Method to respond to interview questions
      • Formula for responding to behavioral interview questions – talking about yourself in action
      • “Tell me about a time when…” or “Give me an example of…”
      • Situation/Task
        • Describe the situation/task
        • Be specific
      • Action
      • Results Achieved
        • What happened, what did you accomplish, what did you learn, what changed
      • For narrative questions: create an elevator pitch
    • The “Performance” of interviewing
      • AVOID THESE ANSWERS
        • I’m a people person
        • I love working with people
        • I want to help people
        • I’m hardworking
        • I’m dedicated
        • I don’t quit
        • I’m passionate
        • I’m organized
      • ^ great things to say about yourself, but DESCRIBE how you’re hardworking/dedicated, how you work with people, etc.
      • Go deep
        • Don’t just report on your first bad grade, instead talk about your transformation into college
        • Apply reflection
      • Be yourself
      • Conduct a practice interview
      • Interviewing the interviewer
        • What do you need to know to make a school decision
        • Ask thoughtful questions and make them go deep
        • Ex:
          • How does your program define success
          • What differentiates you from others
          • How would you describe the culture of the program
          • What initiatives are you working on for the future
          • Who are your most successful alumni
        • Interviews are similar to auditions or performances
        • Practice feeling uncomfortable
        • Improv comedy exercises can help with flexibility and agility in delivering question responses
          • Flex your imagination
            • Take any object and demonstrate using it in a way that it’s not intended to be used
          • Harness the power of pretend
            • Talk about something that you don’t know anything about but practice being convincing
          • Yes…and…
            • Practice keeping a conversation going by using yes…and -accept and build from what is said by others
          • Your mission:
            • Build content for interview
            • Practice the delivery
            • Consider the pro tips