Foreign job shadowing?

[azrielthewicked]

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Hello.
I've been interested in going into Optometry for a while now, but only recently found this website. I have a question about job shadowing and optometry experience. Has anyone had any experience with job shadowing in a foreign country? Do U.S. optometry schools consider it the same as job shadowing done here in the U.S., or will they not look at it in the same light?

To clarify my question, I'm currently in the military and stationed in the United Kingdom. I'm going to be here for a few more years, and am interested in getting started job shadowing, and also plan on doing some more job shadowing for about a year when I get back to the states. I guess I'm just wondering whether optometry schools will look at that favorably or not, because I know the U.S. and U.K. have different requirements to practice optometry. I plan on doing some more job shadowing here regardless, but I obviously wouldn't dedicate a great deal of time to it if the optometry schools won't care about that time anyway. Thanks in advance.

 

[jymezg]

I shadowed a US optometrist for before my application. I think it is definatly favorable if not an unwritten requirement to have that experience as laws about practice vary from state to state here in the US and even more from country to country.

As for your situation I would reccomend shadowing in the UK if possible the more experience and more you have to talk about in your interview the better you will look to admissions.

As a side note though I shadowed two optometrists (one in Austrailia and one in New Zealand) and it was definently an experience that I would reccomend, if I had shadowed these docs before my interview I think it only would have made me a more competitive applicant.

 

[azrielthewicked]

Thanks jymezg. Out of curiosity, when you job shadowed with the optometrists from the various countries, did you notice anything significantly different about their practices? I think I'm going to start looking for local optometrists for job shadowing this week, and maybe try to spend a few hours there once a week or so. Being in the military, I'm also going to try and job shadow with the military optometrists we have access to here, as the eventual goal is to come back into the military as an officer in optometry.

 

[jymezg]

Really BA accents. j/k

I didn't get a chance for extended shadowing while I was over there, only a day per OD. The OD degree is a 4 or 5 year bachelors program over there (depending on the school) that was the biggest difference. The one in NZ, very rural area, used a Snellen Chart poster on the wall, first time I haven't seen the computer projection of random letters. Other than that I wasn't there long enough to see anything significant.

Military is a great way to get rid of the loan debt. ESPECIALLY if you like the lifestyle. Go for it.