Optometry Shadowing

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Did you guys ever have a situation where you only shadowed an optometrist for 2 days? I thought I could stay long-term but the optometrist I was shadowing told me I could no longer shadow. I got only 8 hours of shadowing from her so I'm not sure what to do. Should I just look for another optometrist to shadow? I only have a total of 30 so far.

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Did you guys ever have a situation where you only shadowed an optometrist for 2 days? I thought I could stay long-term but the optometrist I was shadowing told me I could no longer shadow. I got only 8 hours of shadowing from her so I'm not sure what to do. Should I just look for another optometrist to shadow? I only have a total of 30 so far.
Schools are not really concerned with the amount of hours shadowed. Some will say at least 30-45. They are usually more concerned with what you take from your experiences. Make sure you ask questions when you shadow. Expose yourself to different fields and types of specialties and modes of practice. Talk about all that in your personal statement and interviews so you demonstrate you know about the profession.
 
I shadowed an optometrist at a private practice only for one day which was only 4 hours because the opportunity came up. I later got a job at another private practice and ended up being more involved there. So I think as long as you have a variety of settings that you were exposed to or experience that it will look good for your application.
 
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Did you guys ever have a situation where you only shadowed an optometrist for 2 days? I thought I could stay long-term but the optometrist I was shadowing told me I could no longer shadow. I got only 8 hours of shadowing from her so I'm not sure what to do. Should I just look for another optometrist to shadow? I only have a total of 30 so far.

Some schools like to see 30+ hours, however the ones I've talked to want to know what you got out of the shadowing (what you learned, saw, new technology, research, commercial vs private, etc..) and the number of hours wasn't as important. 30 hours of understanding what you saw and learned during your shadowing experience is more valuable than 45 and not getting anything out of it.
 
The only thing you need to worry about with shadowing is being able to speak to admissions committees about your experiences and be able to answer questions about it. They want to know that you know what you're getting into and aren't going to decide optometry isn't for you after they have invested their resources on you.
 
I shadowed one optometrist at a retinal center for only about 8 hours on one day, but I learned SO much from that one day. I'd try to get different experiences if you can, but really spend that time searching out the things you don't know about and asking questions.

For example, this one experience was at a retinal center where the dr sees about 40 pts a day and basically triages them to different diagnostic testing and also does follow ups. I was shocked because I work at a private practice and the patients leave happy, but at this retinal clinic, every. single. patient. was very sick, almost every single one was diabetic, and many had advanced glaucoma/AMD/etc and the dr essentially gave every one of them "bad news." I am interested in diagnosis/treatment, but I learned from that experience that I don't want to specialize in ocular disease because it would be difficult for me. That kind of thing is not for everyone, but I learned that because of this experience! Otherwise, I wouldn't have known. I saw things I'd never even heard of and learned a lot about how the certain finesse it takes to deliver bad news to a patient, and this dr has perfected it. His personality is perfect for it and I greatly admired that. It was a part of optometry I was unfamiliar with until then.
 
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I don't know if this is relevant or not...but for OptomCAS, for shadowing experience, what do you write for the Title/position?

Also was not really sure what to put for description/responsibilities...
I am just really bad at wording things.. :(

Thank you!
 
I put "Shadower" as the title/position. It doesn't really matter, when you put that you were shadowing, they'll know what it means. For description, just put something like "to achieve a well-rounded view of the field of optometry, to gain a greater understanding of what is expected of a medical professional in the examination room with patients and in the office with colleagues and staff, and to observe the application of responsibilities and ethics required of an optometrist" Something along those lines should be fine.
 
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I put "Shadower" as the title/position. It doesn't really matter, when you put that you were shadowing, they'll know what it means. For description, just put something like "to achieve a well-rounded view of the field of optometry, to gain a greater understanding of what is expected of a medical professional in the examination room with patients and in the office with colleagues and staff, and to observe the application of responsibilities and ethics requires of an optometrist" Something along those lines should be fine.
Thank you!
 
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