Hey guys!
Just a reminder, my name is Pooja and I’m now a current SECOND year at SCO from Dallas, TX. If you read my previous blog post, I mentioned I would write about how I found myself at optometry school since this wasn’t my first career path.
After leaving my previous job running a corporate Mathnasium, I ended up going back home to figure out what I wanted to do for a career, shout out to my mom and dad for letting me live at home! My brother is an ophthalmologist with fellowship training in the cornea and was at that time starting up his own practice. He mentioned he could use some help in his clinic and employed me as his tech. Because my brother was starting from scratch, he wasn’t only seeing surgical patients. A lot of his practice was actually services an optometrist provides like diagnosing ocular conditions to refractions and selling eyewear. I told my brother how much I enjoyed those interactions and it was then that he set me up to shadow, Dr. Ivan Bank, an optometrist.
Here’s a photo of me and NOT my brother! That’s my nephew (my brother’s son). He’s a lot cuter than my brother so I’d rather give y’all something cute to look at!
Dr. Bank is a pretty well-known optometrist in the Dallas area. He specializes in management of care for patients with compromised corneas, like keratoconus. He specifically works with fitting these patients with medical contact lenses that not only help with their vision but also comfort. It was shadowing Dr. Bank that I also saw a great professional relationship between an ophthalmologist (my brother) and an optometrist (Dr. Bank). For example, after a transplant, the cornea can often have irregular astigmatism that can’t be fixed with standard glasses and contact lenses. I saw a lot of patients that my brother would transplant sent to Dr. Bank for a scleral contact lens to help them to see optimally. These patients were so grateful to not only my brother but to Dr. Bank for helping them see well again! Wink wink*, the plan is to work with my brother after I hopefully finish residency training. Maybe I’ll still be writing then and can keep y’all updated to how that partnership works out!
Well, there you have it, that basically sums up how I got interested in this field. It sparked such an interest that I finished all the other pre-requisite classes I needed (microbiology, physics, and organic chemistry), took my OAT, and applied to school in the following six months!
Just kidding, of course I have to include my brother in here!