Year 2 optometry student with strabismus

[supernova33418]

Dear all
I am just about to embark upon my second year of optometry school, its been very interesting thus far and I am quite pleased with my career choice. However I have had strabismus all my life, I am 25 now and never had VT or other treatment. My stereopsis is affected as well as my binocular vision, as such I am unable to perform certain tests because I simply cannot see them. Would this affect my career as an Optometrist? Can I still train in this profession or should I pursue an alternate career path. Thank you very much. Have a nice day

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[mathcod]

It would affect you minimally. Your school accepted you knowing you had a strabismus so of course they believe you have the ability to succeed in this career. I've seen monocular ODs who are the gurus in the field.

What tests can you not conduct as a clinician?

 

[310]

Barely matters.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[odiwonka]

It matters but it's possible to work with it. I'm a third year at ICO and a CAET. Although each person's situation is slightly different, I can speak from my experience of talking practicals on slit lamp and bio, the biggies for which binocularity is "very important", it's possible to see clearly and pass monocularly. As I suppress alternately, I learned to work the instruments with an eye patch on for when someone is watching me through a teaching tube. When you're on your own, I don't think it makes that much of a difference. You've been living monocularly for 25 years and have managed, you'll do fine here too. It will be difficult but no more difficult that for your binocular classmates! Depending on which school you are at, you could consider becoming a VT patient

 

[Rain Clouds]

Yeah, another student with a constant strab here. Esotrope from birth.

From a solidarity standpoint, lots of your professors and fellow classmates will try to act like since they know so much about stereopsis and binocular vision that they "know what it's like" for us stereoblind folk, but the honest truth is that they don't, and they can be very insensitive to the needs and, well, feelings of those of us who have never seen stereopsis in our lives.

What I mean is that a lot of folks in optometry, your classmates and faculty, are so well educated in binocular vision issues that they start to mistake that for knowing about the experience of being stereo-blind. But being actually stereo-blind is something that they have no experience with, but you do. Remember that.

So if you know of other tropes going through the same thing you are, I'd recommend working with each other for practicing skills, because there's a few things that are gonna be different for you compared to your stereopsis-appreciating classmates.

You're fine for all the skills, trust me.

But there will be a lot of things coming up where your stereo-appreciating colleagues will be able to see and you just won't. You just have to accept those things. And you won't understand what your colleagues can see and they won't be able to relate to what you see. That'll just be the way it is.

If ya have any questions on how to deal who a strab in optometry school as the year goes on, feel free to message me - I've been there.

 

[warfaceberrs]

gerat,It will be difficult but no more difficult that for your binocular classmates! Depending on which school you are at, you could consider becoming a VT patient,thanks

 

[Studenttosee]

Many of my classmates had ocular related issues and that is often what got them into the field of Optometry. I had a few professors in optometry school that had strabismus or infantile esotropia. That being said, things that are easier to identify with binocular vision using a BIO or noncontact fundus lens will be more difficult for you. But that should mean that you will be that much more vigilant when looking for retinal findings!