Hello everyone! I'm so excited to have been selected to become one of SCO's newest bloggers. Having never done this before, I promise to do my best, but I can't guarantee anything! To start off with I'd just like to quickly introduce myself. My name is Whitney Pollock and I am from a small town called Yates Center located in southeast Kansas. I graduated from Kansas State University in May of 2009 and have just completed my first year of optometry school here at Southern College of Optometry.
During high school I had my mind set on being a psychiatrist. I knew I wanted to be in a health related field, I loved listening and talking with others, and I felt like many of my friends and fellow classmates could really confide in me. I felt like I was set. That is of course, until I actually went and talked to a psychiatrist about her job. After our meeting I felt like instead of being engaged with the patient and truly listening, all she did was prescribe medication and then discuss how that medication was working. All of a sudden I was lost again. Soon after I saw my local optometrist at a Career Day at school and she asked me to come and shadow her. I did the following week and to my surprise I fell in love with the profession. I loved the way she interacted with her patients, I thought the procedures she was doing were very exciting, and I couldn’t wait to come back and do it again. I guess you could say this was the day I got “hooked” on the profession and I have only gotten more intrigued and excited about it as the years have passed.
After finishing my first year of optometry school, I can tell you my excitement hasn't regressed. Although I had to go through some grueling times of studying, lots of caffeine and absolutely no sleep, I have learned so much and am excited to keep learning and increasing my knowledge about the optometric field. It's amazing to me how much I have learned in just one year, and even more amazing to me how much I still have to go!
I look forward to blogging in the future about my new life as a second year, and I hope it helps all of you out there interested in the field of optometry. I can tell you now it's a great profession. Although from mine and others future blogs I'm sure you'll hear about the many challenges we face in school and clinic, hopefully you'll also get to see how rewarding and satisfying optometry really is!