I can't believe October is over, and it's already the second week of November. Fall is flying by in Memphis. Second years have been busy with practicals and midterms. Currently, we are all studying for a pharmacology exam that we have this afternoon. Studying for this exam has been consuming my life for the last week. Fortunately, Dr. Ensor is trying to make it as relevant as possible by structuring his questions like the National Boards and asking predominantly clinic based questions. I've been sorting through stacks of drug flashcards like it's my job.
Like I said, we've also had lots of practicals. In our theory and methods class, we've had 78/90 then BIO, most recently gonioscopy and on Monday we have tonometry. Our final practical is coming up right after Thanksgiving, so it's nice that our practicals are keeping our skills fresh. In the refractive portion of lab, we have started timing our chair skills, history, and manifest refraction to prepare for our 3rd year check-out. I was timed last week and got within a couple minutes of finishing under 40 minutes, but the real goal is to do everything under 30 minutes. That's going to take some more practice. We've also been fabricating more glasses in our ophthalmic optics class. Besides my first sphero-cylinder pair, I've made some extra pairs for SVOSH too. I'm still amazed by the pattern-less edger that can pump out a pair of lenses in no time. We have that practical next week over lensometry, frame adjustment and selection. Our final lab is pediatrics, and we have a timed oral and written practical right after Thanksgiving break. Hopefully by finishing these lab practicals, I'll have some more time to study for finals in the morning. Time for class, I'm off!