Student Life Blogs

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10/29/13

Optifest 2013!

Greetings, Blogosphere:

What do you get when you mix the top industry leaders of ophthalmic and optical products with a dollop of tradeshow consumerism and a dash of student prize giveaways? One epic evening the SCO community affectionately calls, “Optifest.”

For over the past 20+ years, the SCO AOSA Trustees have developed, planned, and organized the annual Opitfest. This year’s event saw over 24 vendors from the ophthalmic and optical industry represented. The SCO community was able to enjoy discounted frames and sunglasses for purchase and optometry’s industry partners were able to educate SCO’s students, faculty, and staff on the newest product innovations and services their organizations have created. While you’d have to travel to an optometry conference to get this kind of industry exposure, AOSA brings the exhibit hall to the SCO campus free of charge, but with all the bang of a larger tradeshow (crowds and freebies included!!).

Planning such a highly anticipated event like Optifest took several months of preparation, but all that early hard work really paid off. And with the help of over 40 classmates volunteering alongside the vendors, any hiccups that might have occurred were quickly resolved before anyone could have been the wiser. From an event organizer’s perspective, I couldn’t have asked for a smoother Optifest. Of course, the AOSA Trustees build upon the successes of each previous Optifest, so I know next years’s event will raise the bar even higher!

I can’t do Optifest justice with a single blog post, but I hope you’ll get a better idea of the event experience with the photos below compliments to SCO’s Communication Director, Jim Hollifield.

I appreciated the entire SCO community’s participation at Optifest 2013, and helping to continue this one-of-a-kind optometry school tradition!

Carpe Diem,

Amy

Posted by Amy Dunbar at 10/29/13

10/19/13

“Our cloak of compassion, integrity, and honesty” – Class of 2017’s White Coat Ceremony

Happy Saturday, readers! It has been an eventful and exciting few weeks for the class of 2017 here at SCO. Between the excitement of receiving our white coats at the White Coat Ceremony & Convocation two weekends ago and the relief of making it through our first round of exams and lab practicals, we have learned a lot in the past few weeks about what it is like to actually be an optometry student.

After a hard week of studying, the ceremony served as a reminder of the wonderful community that we are now a part of. It was nice to take a step back and remember that what we are working toward is much larger than one difficult course, one tricky lab, or even our time as optometry students – we’re entering a community of optometric physicians that we will be a part of for the rest of our lives. The speeches were heartwarming, the honored individuals were inspiring, and the ceremony was beautiful. Congratulations, classmates!

One of the best parts of the weekend for a lot of the first year students was having some of our loved ones come to Memphis. For most of us, it was the first time we had seen our family since we moved here. Lots of catching up to do! None of my family members who came to the ceremony had ever been to Memphis before, so we had a fun weekend full of sight-seeing around this cool city. After three days full of Memphis BBQ, Beale Street, the Mississippi River, and SCO festivities we said goodbye for another couple of months. It meant a lot to me that they were able to come support me on that exciting day, and I wore my white coat with pride knowing that I would never be here without the support of my loved ones.

The studying picked right back up again after our families headed back home, and we finished up our first long “chunk” of exams earlier this week. While it would be nice if there were just a few more hours in the day, we are all doing our best to keep our heads above the water and I know that we will all get some much needed rest and relaxation over Thanksgiving break! As you can see from the photo below, my Louie is a wonderful study buddy. He gives us something to laugh about during the long nights of studying!

I am planning on posting again in a week or so about students working part-time jobs or work study positions during optometry school – please feel free to comment if there’s anything else you’d like me to discuss about being a first year here at SCO! Thanks again for reading.

Posted by Amy Dunbar at 10/19/13

10/15/13

A Sense of History, A Sense of Pride

Signs of SCO’s history are everywhere, if you know where to look. On the eleventh floor, in the lounge area where nervous interviewing students wait for their turn to manifest their destiny, three separate iterations of the school are photographed: two different brick buildings, and one of the tower we all know and love. A few floors down on the eighth floor, there exists a wall triptych detailing some of the individuals driving the growth of the institution and their accomplishments. Lastly, a very recent addition is a mural in the atrium of the new academic complex that depicts the history of Southern College of Optometry, from first foundations to shiny new buildings. Recently, however, a few events have connected the history of the physical building and some of the individuals behind it in quite a unique way for me; essentially, these unrelated encounters have given me a neat look into SCO’s past.

The mural.

The first of these encounters occurred in Adult Primary Care about a month ago. A 75 year old male presented for an eye exam. He hadn’t had one in fifteen years or so and only came because his wife was undergoing treatment for glaucoma. His vision wasn’t terrible with his current prescription, but we updated his ancient prescription for the better. The rest of the exam was rather unremarkable except for an interesting story that came up in the course of the exam.

You see, my patient was a lifelong Memphian. Actually, growing up, he didn’t live too far from the exam room in which we were. In fact, he used to live near a brick building, an optometry school…Southern College of Optometry. As a child growing up in the 1940s, his mother would take him yearly to SCO so that the optometry students could get practice with pediatric patients. And now here he was, in the winter of his life, still receiving his eyecare from the same institution, just in a different building! How cool is that! I was just one student doctor in a chain of student doctors dating back to the 1940s. Very cool.

The second event happened just a few weeks ago, during Homecoming. As part of that busy weekend, a donor reception was held in the new complex to honor those that had contributed a lot of money to SCO’s future. During that reception, I had the privilege of giving a tour of the new complex to a retired doctor from the class of 1955, and he had some interesting stories to tell. For starters, his brother graduated from SCO in 1948. Thus, his older brother could very well have seen my 75 year old patient! Furthermore, back then they had class in a tin shack. So, if it rained too hard, the lecture would be canceled because you wouldn’t be able to hear anything. If the temperature got too hot, the optometry students melted, and in the winter, they froze. How different from nowadays, in our climate-controlled awesome super-comfortable high-tech auditorium.

But, he told me as we walked through the new labs, it was all worth it. His time at SCO prepared him well for life after graduation. He even taught at SCO for a stint after the tower was built in 1969, but he couldn’t ignore his native Kentucky for very long. He started his own practice there and retired about 15 or 16 years ago. Cognizant of his alma mater’s effect on his life, he decided to give back to the school by contributing to its future and donating money for the new classroom complex.

As he told me all this, waves of pride and gratitude and…awe swept over me. Have you ever really thought about just how many nameless, faceless people indirectly assisted you in your life in some way? Have you ever considered just how many people helped build the institutions in which you belong, and the careers by which you make a life, simply with their hard work and effort? That crowd is certainly as enormous as often as it is unsung.

Yet suddenly, here was a name and face that I could connect to that formerly nameless and faceless crowd. I thanked him for his contributions to the school and all he had done for optometry. After all, it is because of doctors like him that student doctors like myself can look forward to a rewarding career with the scope of practice that we enjoy. Such a thing cannot be taken for granted. Accepting my thanks with a handshake and a smile, he told me that it was now my generation’s turn to carry the banner of optometry for optometry.

And so we shall. The new academic complex is more than new classrooms and labs. It is a gift from the past to the future, and I am so proud to be part of the present, in every sense of the word.

Posted by Amy Dunbar at 10/15/13

10/8/13

Last Fall Semester of Classes

Greetings, Blogosphere:

Okay, so the title of today’s blog post may be a bit of a misnomer–yes, I still have externships next fall–but this is absolutely my LAST fall semester of classes/lectures/labs in optometry school! I believe that’s quite the milestone for my third year classmates, don’t you? My lectures now consist of full-scope assessment and management of ocular diseases in my Posterior Segment II, Neuro Eye Disease, Medical Optometry Seminar, and Integrative Analysis II classes. And since SCO is so forward thinking, I’m taking a two semester Practice Management course to prepare me for the various modes of practice I may pursue after graduation. Not only does this course introduce us to the business and financial obligation sides of an optometric practice, but we also are competing within small groups as owners of a virtual practice!

As you all know by now, you can’t find me sitting around and just doing optometry school though. I was able to utilize some free time earlier this semester to take part in two different exciting trips.

Congressional Advocacy Conference

The annual Congressional Advocacy Conference (CAC) brings together national, state, legislative, and student optometric leaders together to promote optometry on Capitol Hill. Now, CAC is unique in that all students who attend must be AOA-PAC members first. As you may recall, back in July SCO hosted it’s PAC Drive for student membership and over 100 students joined AOA-PAC. From that group, over 40 students attended CAC in September–not only was this SCO’s largest group of students to attend the conference, but we had one of the largest student delegations represented there as well! With SCO’s record contributions this year, we were recognized at the conference for receiving the “Representative Level” of donation givings. Now all SCO’s AOA-PAC student members will receive a special lapel pin for their white coats and to wear at future optometry conferences, to signify them as stand-out leaders in sustaining optometry’s legislative progress. SCO definitely set the bar high!

Even though this was my second CAC, this year’s experience has really been one-of-a-kind and I wish I could better share how each of my D.C. escapades played out….a private Capitol tour with my classmates where we ‘accidentally’ ran shoulder-to-shoulder into John Kerry and his Secret Service, to the brunches, lunches, and dinners with my KY Congressional Leaders, to touring the monuments at night with several leaders from the Kentucky Optometric Association, to buying a half dozen cupcakes from competitors Georgetown Cupcake and Baked&Wired so that my roommate back in Memphis and I could go all cupcake wars on these delicacies, and to my personal meeting with my Congressman from KY–who I interned for a whopping 7 years ago!!–about taking those first steps in establishing my own political future in my District (and setting my sights on his office in the coming years!). And of course there was my Day on Hill lobbying on behalf of optometry and advocating for Medicaid parity and student loan forgiveness…why yes, I believe it was another conference well done and I’ve got the pictures to prove it below :)

Float Trip

Okay, school and conferences aside, here’s where the real fun was to be had…several SCO folks took a trip up to Missouri for an overnight float and camping trip. My classmates and I had a blast…sure the water was freezing at first, but we were in these nifty reclining chair floats (with drink holders!) that kept us dry and sunning all day. We even tied all our floats together; we were quite the colossal floating gang! This sure was a long way from my father’s Hiwassee River inner tube float trip he took my older brother and me on back in the day, and at least this time around I didn’t lose my floatation device!

Next blog post will be out soon and it’s all about OPTIFEST 2013!!

Carpe Diem,

Amy

Posted by Amy Dunbar at 10/8/13

10/2/13

Hello October!

Well the start of fall semester has been very eventful, to say the least! After a ten day break following mini-term, we quickly got back into the groove of having a full course load and lots of campus events to keep us busy. A week after the start of classes, close to 50 SCO students (including myself) had the opportunity to attend the AOA Congressional Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C. After a day of hearing updates from various government officials and leaders in optometry, over 600 optometry students and optometrists headed to Capitol Hill to meet with elected state representatives. During our meeting with a few staffers of a Tennessee senator, I was able to share a bit about how the particular bill we were lobbying for directly impacted me, as an optometry student. (For those who were wondering which bill I’m referring to, it is the National Health Service Corps Improvement Act of 2013 – H.R.920). I enjoyed every bit of the trip and was a great experience in advocacy for the advancement of my chosen profession.

Here I am with my fellow optometry students, SCO’s very own Dr. Glen Steele, and AOA President, Dr. Mitch Munson.

September was also a month full of vision screenings! Whether mandatory or voluntary, screenings are probably some of my favorite opportunities to get out in the community and sharpen my clinical skills. The first event I participated in this month was with SCO’s Fellowship of Christian Optometrists. We provided vision screenings to families that were housed yet have no health insurance. We were able to provide vision screenings for almost 100 guests! As part of the second year curriculum, we have a course that serves as our introduction to clinical communication and patient care. As part of the course, we are assigned to shadow in The Eye Center and participate school/community screenings once a week. In my first screening assignment, I participated in Project Homeless Connect and we provided exams for over 170 guests! Last spring I was able to participate as a guest escort, so it was great being a part of this awesome event in a more clinical role. I have also gone on my first school screening, which was also a great experience screening a pediatric population for the first time. Those kids certainly have a way of keeping you on your toes!

Some of my classmates and I at Project Homeless Connect!

Outside of school obligations and activities, I try to maintain an outlet for my interests and hobbies. Since being in Memphis, I’ve made an effort to attend dance classes and I even joined a studio. A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to teach a few dance workshops as part of the studio’s open house fundraiser. It was SO much fun!

Optifest, one of the biggest events that SCO’s AOSA puts on every year, took place not too long ago. It was an awesome event with lots of optical and opthalmic vendors on site. This time last year, I was trying to figure out what retinoscope brand to purchase, now I have to decide which binocular indirect ophthalmoscope (BIO) brand to purchase. With that said, I was able to meet with a few representatives so I can make an informed purchase. And of course, I couldn’t walk away without buying some fabulous frames — I think my spectacle count is up to four now!

Currently, all of SCO is gearing up for Convocation and Homecoming activities taking place this weekend. The Class of 2017 will be officially welcomed into the profession as students and receive their white coats and we will also celebrate our alumni and award recipients. This year, there is another special event taking place during this exciting weekend — the ribbon cutting for our beautiful new facility.

October is looking to be just as eventful as September was. Between exams and practicals, I’ll be attending two conferences this month and there are so many events taking place on campus and around the city. Let’s just say, I’m excited for the month ahead!

Until next time,

Feyisayo

Posted by Amy Dunbar at 10/2/13