I was wondering what the optometry clinicals are like 4th year? Are there anything such as being on call? What tasks are you doing while at work? Seems like most OD just kind of perscribe lenses and glasses.. ? How does it compare to medical school rotations?
Final year of optometry school ?
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I can't make the comparison to med school, having not been there, but I will tell you how our 4th year goes at SCO. The residents are usually the ones who have the pleasure of being "on call", but if you miss clinic days, you can make them up by volunteering to be on-call after hours for a week or something like that. At SCO, we spend 1 semester in SCO's Eye Center and 2 semesters away on external rotations. So the following is only in regards to the time we spend at the Eye Center as every externship will be different.
So of course we prescribe Rxs and do general wellness exams, but we also do rotations through ocular disease, pediatrics, vision therapy, contact lens, and low vision in addition to primary care. So while the run-of-the-mill OD may not offer all those services at their practice, you'll definitely hit all of them going through school. We work 5 days a week, 8am to whenever you're done, usually no later than 6:00pm.
So of course we prescribe Rxs and do general wellness exams, but we also do rotations through ocular disease, pediatrics, vision therapy, contact lens, and low vision in addition to primary care. So while the run-of-the-mill OD may not offer all those services at their practice, you'll definitely hit all of them going through school. We work 5 days a week, 8am to whenever you're done, usually no later than 6:00pm.
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It depends which school you are at and which rotations you end up doing. At PUCO we have 4 rotations, and about 1/3 of the class does an internal rotation. We have to do one primary care, one ocular disease, and one specialty/co-management site. The 4th one we can pick from whatever we want, as long as we don't have two of the same type of sites (like two VA's or two private practices).
I have a private practice, a hospital, a pediatric practice and an air force base. I heard that for the hospital site when my attending is on call, I am also on call. Basically it means if he gets called in, I also have to go in. You can't be on call yourself since we aren't licensed yet.
As for what you do, again it will vary based on your site, but you can expect to do anything that you are taught to do in school, state dependent. Mostly you will be doing full exams but some sites will have more medical, more CL, more binocular vision, etc.
I have a private practice, a hospital, a pediatric practice and an air force base. I heard that for the hospital site when my attending is on call, I am also on call. Basically it means if he gets called in, I also have to go in. You can't be on call yourself since we aren't licensed yet.
As for what you do, again it will vary based on your site, but you can expect to do anything that you are taught to do in school, state dependent. Mostly you will be doing full exams but some sites will have more medical, more CL, more binocular vision, etc.
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Does it seem mostly like they just prescribe glasses because that's all you've ever needed? That had been my impression of optometry before I decided to go into the field, because I had never had conjunctivitis or retinal tears or anything like that. ODs deal with all kinds of things, so you have to be exposed to that in your rotations. Every state has different laws, but you might be learning how to manage glaucoma patients, learning to co-manage cataract/LASIK patients, diagnosing eye disease (infectious diseases like bacterial or viral conjunctivitis, uveitis, etc or other diseases like macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, etc - those are just the more common ones but there are plenty more!), diagnosing retinal tears, managing dry eye conditions (could include everything from examining the tear film to inserting punctal plugs), evaluating visual fields and helping patients learn how to live with low vision, removing foreign objects from the eyes, etc. There is a whole lot more than just glasses that OD's do...but certainly glasses/contacts is the most common thing to run into and therefore what you see the most of in 4th year. Also, lots of the optometry school clinics are in low-income areas (lots more eye disease) or draw in specialty patients with unique issues that can best be managed at a large clinic. Most schools require that you do at least one rotation in house, but then allow you to choose your external rotation sites in order to allow you to get the most experience with the type of things you are interested in.
