The Road To Be an Optometrist

I feel like I have been in school for far too long! However, my journey (of being in school) will one day end and I will be sitting in my own office as an Optometrist taking care of patients and providing my daughter everything this world can offer. For now, though, I have many milestones I have met and still need to meet in order to become a successful Optometrist.

When I decided that I wanted to become an Optometrist, the first thing I looked into were the Optometry schools. In California there are only 2 Optometry schools UC Berkeley and Southern California School of Optometry. All together there are only 22 schools of Optometry all across the United States, which is not a lot compared to Dental schools (which have approximately 58) and Medical schools (which have approximately 180). When I saw this I was pretty shocked and concerned because I know and have been told that any of these types of schools are very competitive, therefore when it is time to apply, you have to apply to as many as you can and you have to have really good grades, grade point average, and also a good “portfolio”.

My school of preference is UC Berkeley because it is one of the best Optometry schools in the U.S and because it is in the Bay Area. After I knew that this was my school of choice and that Optometry was the career I wanted to pursue, I did a lot of research on pre-requisites, exams, and other things that I will need in order to get into the school. Even though I mostly looked at the requirements for UC Berkeley, they are pretty much the same for all Optometry schools. 

Optometry School's main class requirements are Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, and English. Since most of these requirements require atleast 2 semesters of each, many students choose to major in a branch of Biology; However, Optometry schools do not require a Bachelor's Degree in any kind of Biology. They accept any kind of Bachelor's degree whether it is a business degree, arts degree, or whatever you want, as long as all the science, math, and english requirements are met. I havc met 2 Optometrist that did not have their degree anywhere near Biology. One of them had a degree in business while the other doctor had it in history. Even though I knew that was an option, I still decided to major in Biology: cell and molecular, because I love biology and I find it fascinating. Other requirements that some schools look for is volunteering, working, or being an intern at an Optometry office. The reason they sometimes require this is because they want you to make sure that you are in deed interested in the field and you have a sense of what it is about. 

Besides the volunteering and required classes a major part of applying to Optometry school is taking the OAT (Optometry Admission Test). In this exam, you will be tested on the courses mentioned above. There are courses that can help you prepare for this exam, such as the Kaplan course. This course, from what I have heard, is very good at preparing you to succeed in taking the OAT. 

After I am done with Optometry school, which takes about 4 years, I would want to work in someone else's office first and then open up my own office. This video discuses some tips on how to open up your own business. 

Something else I would like to share about the my road to a career in Optometry is that I did attend UC Berkeley's Opto- Camp. In this camp we learned a lot about the school, the admission process, deadlines, what makes a good candidate for the school, how to prepare yourself for school interviews, and so much more. It was so helpful to attend this past summer, 2012. 

What To Read And Write, As An Optometrist

What kind of material do Optometrists read or write? This is a question I never thought about until now! When I think about being an Optometrist, I think of how I will be helping patients with their vision care. It never occurred to me all the reading and writing that I still have to do in order to keep up with my practice, technology, and also to be up to date with new research that will be necessary to provide my patients with the best care. 

Things To Read:

There are a lot of things that Optometrist have to read. Many times Optometrists may have to refer patients to other specialists and the specialists send the Optometrist letters of what is going on with the patient to keep the Optometrist updated and also informed about the patient. Also there are many changes that can occur within the Optometry field, therefore Optometrists must stay updated with the latest news in order to better serve their patients.

                                                                    For example the

 

AOA, American Optometric Association,  is a website that has the latest news on new research about the eye and also it keeps the Optometrist updated with conventions and classes that are needed in order to keep themselves registered. Other things that they have to read are emails from patients, other Optometrists, and doctors. Optometrist read many things including order forms so that they can order equipment for their practice, frames, and other necessary supplies in order to keep the practice running and also to make sure they can always provide their patients with anything that may be necessary. Other material that Optometrists may read are Optometric journals, these journals consist of studies done by other Optometrist or other eye related doctors. 

Things To Write:

Just how there are many things that Optometrists have to read, there are many things they also have to write. Each day, an Optometrists has to document examination information for each patient. They also have to write prescriptions for patients that may need it. Just like they have to read emails, they also have to respond to emails. Optometrists also write blogs, just like we do. For example, they can write blogs so that they can get feedback regarding a certain topic. This feedback can be from their patients or from anyone around the world that may want to have their input in the same topic. Optometrist do a lot of writing and if they want to go beyond their daily tasks of writing prescriptions and documenting  they will have to be highly involved in the Optometry association.

Before, I did not realize how much Optometrists have to read and write. Even though I had an idea because it is only right that someone that is in charge of the health of your eyes to have to read and write a lot, I did not realize the intensity of it. I think that reading and writing is something that we all must get used to, even though we may not like it because every professional field always required some kind of daily reading and writing. So even though I thought that after college I would not have to do so much reading and writing, I was wrong. However, it will be on material that I enjoy, therefore I probably would not mind doing it at all! 

A Day In The Life Of An Optometrist

Optometry has caught my attention ever since my sister was first seen for vision problems at a very young age. The first time I saw the anatomy of the human eye, I was fascinated. It fascinated me to know that the human eye is the only part of our body that is connected to the brain by only one nerve. The human eye interests me a lot, therefore I would enjoy working in the Optometry field to help people that have eye problems because, to me, the eye is an important part of our body that helps us view the many wonders of the world. 

As soon as I knew that I wanted Optometry to be my future career, I knew I wanted to open up my own office one day because I feel that with your own practice, you are able to build better relationships with your patients and you are able to have more control of your personal life. Therefore knowing first hand, from an Optometrist, what the benefits are of owning your own practice, how the office operates and also of what his day consists of, was very helpful.

Before choosing to be an Optometrist I did not know what field I wanted to get into as a doctor. A lot of people would tell me that the only down side of being a doctor is that they are usually always on call and most of them don’t get to spend a lot of time with their family. I always knew that I wanted to have a family and be able to spend as much time with them as possible and not get interrupted during a holiday dinner to go attend patients. Being an Optometrist and having your own business provides those abilities. The benefits that come along with having your own office is that you can create your own schedule. With his own practice, Dr. V is able to create his own schedule and take vacations whenever he wants in order to spend time with his family. His office is located in So. Cal and half of his family are residents of San Francisco. Being able to create his own schedule is great because he is able to come to San Francisco during any holiday to spend time with his family.

Being an Optometrist and owning your own practice also comes with other benefits as well, one of them being that how the patients are scheduled and how much time you spend with them is entirely up to you. His day begins at 9 AM and he sees many different types of patients, varying in age and each one having different types of needs for their eyes. For regular exams Dr. V is checking for cataracts, retinal tears, macular degeneration, glaucoma, lazy eye, and evidence of systemic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. He treats patients for all of the diseases mentioned above and when there are certain cases that he can not treat he refers patients to specialists. Throughout the day he also treats patients for contact lenses and also writes prescriptions for glasses for each of his patients when they are required. After he is done examining the patients, the Opticians will help the patients fit frames and then send the frames with the prescription to a lab so that they can fit them in for the patient. Dr. V has different closing times for different days. He recommends many of his patients to get checked annually in order to detect any type of disease early before it gets any worse. Also depending on the ages of the patients, older patients that are more prone to acquiring diseases are required to get their eyes checked more frequently then younger patients. 

After finding out what it would be like to be an Optometrist with an owned practice, I realized how much I wanted to become an Optometrist and also own my practice. Becoming an Optometrist is something I look forward to everyday. I am excited to one day be able to help people with their vision. Even though I do not wear glasses and have not gone through the experience of having bad eye sight I know a lot of people that have bad eye sight including really close family members. Because of their experiences I know the importance of having good eye sight and having contact lenses or glasses in order to correct your eye sight if its not well. The thought of helping people to see better is really fascinating to me. I'm excited to see how the experience will be of being able to work with people's eyes and also being able to have my own practice where I can create my own schedule and also have the capability of building good relationships with my patients.  

Eye Sight Blogging

I am definitely not a perfect blogger…. Yet. Maybe I will never become a perfect blogger. However, if I do ever blog or become a blogger I will definitely want to blog about my discipline, which is Optometry and if I don’t ever blog it would be interesting to know what is said about the Optometry field. Therefore I went around and found 3 different blogs either written by Optometrist or written towards the Optometry field.

Frames, this is how most Optometrist make most of their money.

http://www.eyecarepro.net/optometry-marketing/2012/09/27/how-optometrists-can-win-the-battle-vs-online-eyewear-retailers/ In this blog, the writer presents strategies on how to keep the patients from grabbing their prescription and taking it somewhere else where they can buy cheaper frames. Although it was pretty informative, it did not provide any links to where he got the information about patients doing such a thing. Also it would also have helped if he would have put links on the statistics of how that affects Optometrist. His blog title, I thought, was pretty catchy and it’s the reason why I went on to read about it.

The next blog I read is in this link http://anonymousoptometrist.com/. This blog also did not have any links. The writer gives a lot of information about how he/she feels about how Optometry came about and also states a couple of facts about the profession, but does not have any links to back his information up. I also think that there is a lack of identity of the writer in this blog. I do not know who he or she is. Even though I want to say that it leaves room for discussion, but I don’t really think there is any.

The last blog that I read was about a blog that talked about how to build a successful practice. This caught my attention because one day I plan to open up my own practice. (http://newsfromaoa.org/2012/09/27/successful-practices-connect-the-generations/). In this blog the writer informs the reader about the different types of patients one can have depending on their generation. I felt like it was pretty informative and I felt like I could relate to it because this is what I want to do in the future. This person also incorporates personal story in the beginning, which then makes me want to continue reading what he has to say. His blog catches the reader with the personal story in the beginning and then he continues with his point and main part of his blog. The only thing missing again is links that can help him prove his point on what he is trying to say.

 It was really interesting to look at all these blogs and find out how Optometrist create blogs and also others that write about the profession. I found it really interesting how many of these blogs did and did not incorporate many of the things that we need to incorporate into our blogs. 

Blogging: A Better Genre of Writing?

What is blogging? Before I took this class, I never thought about the definition or the genre of blogging because I never thought of creating a blog or how it would benefit me in any way. I would look at blogs on different websites and the only type of definition that would come to mind was how people would go online and put their opinions about certain topics and how people would just comment on them. I never realized how blogging was all over the place. Now that I think about it there are so many different types of blogs, many formal and informal. Taking this class, has led me to the conclusion that blogging is somewhat in the range of conversation between the writer and the readers; However, there is so much more to blogging then putting ideas out and getting feedback.

Blogging is a very different way of writing and it is very open-ended. It is a method of writing that has come from using technology as a way to communicate and socialize. While I was trying to determine what blogging was about, I went on a couple of blogs myself in order to get a feel of how people blog and the differences in the blogs and these are a couple that I found (1) and (2). Looking at these blogs made me realize how people use blogs in various ways of creativity in order to get their point or message across to the readers. Blogging has become a method of web writing that people use to express their ideas on various subjects, whether it is on their personal life, politics, health, business, etc.

Even though writers should have some kind of formality in their blogs, like they do in essays or anything that is published, blogs differ a lot from any type of formal writing. Before blogs, in order for people to have their work read by others they would either have to have a book published or they would have to put it on a magazine or newspaper. Basically anywhere where their work would probably get completely edited in a way that would attract more readers. However, blogging has completely changed that. It has made it easier for people to put their work out for others to read. It has also made it possible for writers to get their work out without it being completely changed to the point where it begins to mean something else. Blogging, in itself, is its own genre.

Blogging has evolved to become a way that people communicate and become part of a kind of community. Christina Harview points out, “… blogging is also a way to increase the skills of information handling and transmittance” . Harview makes an interesting point because when we make blogs we have to increase our skills of how to transmit information accurately so that we do not mislead the readers and also so that the readers can understand what the blog is about. Also as writers we have to be able to know how to handle the information. Whether it involves handling the information that we obtain for our blogs or the information that is presented by the feedback we get from the readers. Blogging has made it so that people become part of a community. Even though many of these people may not know each other when they are reading each others’ blogs or commenting on them, they share the same interests and therefore it creates a type of community. Even though many of the readers and bloggers are probably all completely different, at that point and time when they are relating and commenting on blogs they are part of a community that relates to that blog. We read this article in class and the author, Harris, makes a good point about the sense of community in writing.

Blogging also extends to an open-ended way of writing. There are no limits on how to present your writing in a blog. “Blogging is also incomplete, open, and ongoing. It is about process, not product. It is about a shared space”, this is what makes blogging so interesting and also why it attracts so many writers. There are no limits on presentation. A writer can get really creative on how they want to present their information to their readers. This causes readers to be more engaged in the writers work. It is also ongoing, therefore the blog will never have an end. Unlike a article on a paper, magazine, a book, or an essay, blogging doesn’t just get reviewed, edited by others, or just read. It gets feedback and the writer can go back and respond the feedback. With the other types of work a writer may never get responses on their work.

Blogging has evolved the way people get their points across. I think it has increased the amount people write now a days compared to before. Even though some may not be as formal as others, it all depends on who the audience is and who the writer is trying to target. Blogging has enabled people to increase their skills on how they process information and gives a lot of people a sense of community. Some people may be too shy to put their work out or they may not belong to any communities; However, blogging has changed that for many. Enabling people to feel part of a community and also being able to put work out that can stimulate people’s minds and also stimulate their own. Now blogging makes more sense to me. Doing this research on what blogging is has made me realize how it could also help me in my future as an Optometrist. There will be times where I might want to get a point across or come across a new method or research for something eye related and by making a blog about it I can get feedback from people everywhere, not just my patients. Blogging can help me spread an idea beyond my patients!