Happy Sunday, readers! I promised to write again once I had some experience as a third-year clinician under my belt, and here I am! Somehow we are already a third of the way through our summer semester. Our new busy clinic schedule is making the summer fly! The way our schedule is set up this semester is pretty different from second year because of our clinic assignments. We have class from 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning until around 10:00, then we either have labs (twice a week) or one of our three clinic assignments (the other three days) depending on which lab group we’re in. My lab group has labs on Mondays and Fridays and clinic Tuesday through Thursday. I’ll walk y’all through each of the three clinic assignments to give you an idea of how they’re all different and what we learn from each one.
On Tuesdays, my lab group has our Optical assignment. We are assigned to the AM shift half the time and the PM shift the other half, meaning we are either in Optical from 10:00-12:45 or from 12:00 until we close. There are actually multiple different assignments within our Optical assignment that we rotate through throughout the semester. Some of these include working out on the floor selling glasses, working in the back room adjusting/fixing/dispensing glasses, working in the lab making the glasses, or even shadowing different people who work in the Optical to get an idea of how everything is run. I like that we get the opportunity to experience every part of the Optical process – from the end of the patient’s eye exam until they pick up the glasses we made! Optical is a lot of work but it’s a good learning experience and it’ll be valuable information once we’re out in practice and possibly managing our own optical.
Wednesdays are fun for two reasons. First, we actually don’t have class on Wednesday mornings so we get to sleep in! Second, my group has our clinic rotations which means we get to see patients in a variety of different settings each week. Each rotation lasts four weeks or longer and they include Teen Clinic, Technology, Nursing Home, Vision Therapy, and even one day of shadowing behind-the-scenes to get an idea of how The Eye Center is run. Since we rotate through these different assignments, I haven’t experienced all of them myself yet. I spent the first four weeks of the semester in Teen Clinic, which is kind of like a stepping-stone between Pediatrics and Adult Primary Care. Teen Clinic was a lot of fun and it made me feel more confident in Adult Primary Care because I was getting more exposure in doing full eye exams in the clinic. I really enjoyed working with the teenagers and I was sad for that rotation to end (for now!) 2 weeks ago. This past week was my first week in the Nursing Home rotation. Nursing Home assignments are different because we have to actually go to various Nursing Homes, Assisted Living Centers, and Hospice centers throughout the Memphis area. At some of the locations we have to go to the patient’s room and do the full eye exam with the patient in their bed. These assignments are a good opportunity to work on incorporating flexibility into our eye exam routine because we can’t do every procedure the same way we would do it in the clinic. After my Nursing Home assignment is over in a few weeks, I’ll be heading to Technology where I’ll be running different tests and scans on patients from all throughout The Eye Center.
Thursdays are my favorite day: the day I’m assigned to Adult Primary Care (APC)! APC is exciting because we’re doing full eye exams (up to three per day right now) on any patient over the age of 18. Each person is assigned to a suite with three other student doctors. We work with one staff doctor in the morning (my suite has Dr. Sparks) and another in the afternoon (Dr. Borgman). It’s fun, exciting, and sometimes a little scary – but I absolutely love it! My staff doctors are very nice and helpful and they push us to help us learn as much as possible. I have learned SO much from each patient I’ve worked with and I’m so excited to finally be at this stage in my education!
The days in clinic are long and can be tiring, but I’m loving every minute and trying to learn as much as I can from the brilliant doctors I’m surrounded by. Adapting to our new schedule has been fun and I’ve enjoyed having exciting patient encounters to discuss with my friends and colleagues. The next exciting thing on the schedule is that we’re leaving on Wednesday for Optometry’s Meeting in Seattle!!! I’ve never been to Seattle so I’m really excited for some great sight-seeing and an awesome convention. I think I mentioned this in my previous post, but Ben (my fiancé! Still so weird to say!) is representing SCO at the Varilux Optometry Student Bowl on Thursday night. The Student Bowl is a BLAST and I can’t wait to cheer Ben on! The competition includes one student from each optometry school and lots of difficult, fast-paced optometry questions. I definitely wouldn’t have the guts to do it and I am so proud of Ben for competing!
I’ll write again after the conference (hopefully with good news about the Student Bowl!). Until then, enjoy your summer! Thanks for reading!