Hi, readers! My class is getting close to the end of a very busy year and I wanted to check in and update y’all before we start the home stretch! Last week was our second midterm week of the semester and this week was the start of our most important practical yet: our pre-clinical checkouts. Pre-clinical checkouts are essentially a “super-practical” – we perform a full (one hour long) eye exam on a classmate, and if we score above an 80% on every section of the exam we are cleared to start seeing our own patients in the summer term. These checkouts take place in The Eye Center (our first time performing these procedures in the clinic) and they go on for all of this week and all of next week. Mine is scheduled for Friday morning at 7:30. I’m feeling a little nervous but prepared, and I’m excited that I’ll be able to get it done during the first week and can relax and enjoy my Easter weekend a little bit more! I can’t wait until next month when we get to start applying all of these skills in the clinic and seeing REAL patients on a regular basis!
Besides studying for last week’s midterms and practicing for checkouts, there have been some fun events going on at SCO! Last Friday and Saturday was the Housing Fair for the Class of 2019. As a Student Ambassador, I had the opportunity to interact with a lot of the incoming students and their families as they met some of their classmates and explored Memphis a little bit. It was a lot of fun and it made me even more excited about welcoming a new class to the SCO family soon! I can hardly believe that we will be third years next month and there will already be an entering class that is two years below us here. Time flies when you’re having fun (and when you’re super busy!).
Another recent event for the second year class is that we were able to choose a seminar (kind of like an elective course) that we will be taking in the fall. This was exciting because it was the first time we were able to choose a class/seminar to take so it gave us the opportunity to think about what areas of optometry interest is the most and which professors we may want to learn a little more from. The options we were given were all great and it was hard to choose just one. The seminars that were offered included specialty contact lens fits, ortho-keratology and myopia control, pediatrics and VT, medical optometry, anterior segment disease, VT in acquired brain injury patients, practice management, and behavioral optometry/VT in brain injuries, sports vision, and autism. We were all able to rank our top three choices through an online survey, and luckily we were all matched with our first choice! I chose the ortho-keratology seminar with Dr. Jackson and I am looking forward to working with him in the fall!
Well, I’m off to practice one last time for my checkouts. Wish me luck! Next time I post, I’ll be a third year and I’ll be able to tell y’all all about my early clinic adventures. Exciting times are ahead! Happy Easter, everyone!