I have spent the last 3 Friday mornings observing 4th year students perform exams in the clinic. I was scheduled to go to a school screening today but that was canceled and I was reassigned to the clinic.
These shadowing sessions have been great learning experiences for me. Today I got to sit in on an exam with an elderly woman who had cataracts in both eyes as well as glaucoma. The 4th year student allowed me to take a peek in at the cataracts through the slit lamp biomicroscope. I also got to tag along for retinal digital photos, visual fields, and pachymetry (measuring corneal thickness). We have been working on photos and fields in lab. It's nice to get a feel for what it will be when we start seeing our own patients.