N/A

[waapo2018]

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[ronzroyce97]

Hope you feel better OP, hang in there!

 

[john335568]

So what is your plan now?

 

[waapo2018]

So what is your plan now?

Find a job with My Biology Degree

 

[DocereTruth]

So sorry to hear you are going through such a tough time. I hope you find the path that brings you happiness and prosperity, Waapo.

Would you say it was the institution itself that contributed to some of the feelings you have now? Or was it in general the rigor of a first year curriculum?

 

[waapo2018]

So sorry to hear you are going through such a tough time. I hope you find the path that brings you happiness and prosperity, Waapo.

Would you say it was the institution itself that contributed to some of the feelings you have now? Or was it in general the rigor of a first year curriculum?

thank you. I think it was the stress of trying to get all A's and one class just didn't click for me. I don't think my other classes were super hard, but that one class just ripped my soul out and I felt like at that point I just couldn't do it anymore.

 

[pnw256]

Also sending you my well wishes! Take your time to recover, I know the wounds are still fresh.

However I think when the time comes, you can still give it another go. As you say, it's just that one class that really did the damage so as long as you can nail down the keys to study in that class, you'll be fine. You doing well in all the other classes and getting into that school shows you have the capacity and potential to pass that course. You will have to deal with the trauma of retaking that course and relearning that material but you have the added advantage of knowing beforehand what to expect.

 

[GypsyHummus]

Thank you for sharing your story.

Indeed, any professional school can be a harrowing experience, espcdcially with so many classes taken at once.

Did you decide to take the medical leave? Maybe you could come back with a fresh mind after working for a while. The day to day job of an optometrist doesn’t seem as stressful as school, from what I saw when I shadowed.

I just hope you can find a job with a bio degree lol. That would stress me out!

 

[20DOC20]

You're under a lot of pressure in clinical optometric practice. It's one of those professions where mistakes / errors are not tolerated and if a bad test sent you over the edge, what would happen if you made a bad clinical decision that did someone harm?

I've been in practice over 20 years and I can look back at the few cases that went bad. You have to be able to live with it and accept responsibility, learn from it and do better next time. You have to learn to "let it go" and quickly or you'll practice impaired.

Speaking personally, most of the errors that have led to a bad outcome were either unavoidable, or due to patient noncompliance. In the case of the latter, you still have to accept responsibility. For example, don't prescribe a complicated antibiotic regimen for a drug addict like a course of PCN that they have to take tid for 10 days. They won't comply because they're impaired and irresponsible. Instead, prescribe Z-pac that comes in clearly labeled packaging with Day 1, Day 2, etc and shorter course, designed so that the most stupid, impaired person alive can take the drug properly. Another example is WRITE STUFF DOWN on a note for patients who are higher risk and make sure they understand your instructions clearly. I've had a case of herpetic keratitis that was on the verge of full healing that flared up again because the patient discontinued the oral antivirals on his own. I had even written it down for him! So, we started over again. You have to be able to let stuff roll off your back and move on.

Emotionally speaking - in optometry you have to put on a happy face no matter what. I have had some patients be so abusive that I cried and you know what happened? There's no pity. They got really angry! Patients won't apologize to you for making you cry. That's only happened maybe three times in 20 years. I quickly learned that if I get upset, I NEVER let the patient see it. You excuse yourself, run to the restroom, splash water on your face and go back and finish the exam. No one will coddle you in practice. The same goes if you're feeling ill. No pity.

Now, you probably should pursue of career of lower responsibility. You also need something that you can do with a BS in Biology. I wouldn't go into nursing. That's even more stressful than optometry.

How about something like a Histotechnician? You make tissue slides in hospital labs. It pays between 20 to 30 per hour and you get insurance. Not bad. Usually it requires an Associates in Histotechnology, but if you have a BS already the Mayo Clinic has a 9 month program that's certified. It's part in person, part online. The cost is about $8500 dollars.

Given your temperament you don't want a job where you're the person in authority. If a mistake is made, the person in authority is responsible, but if you're lower in rank, you're not responsible for errors. For example, in a hospital lab, the pathologist reading the slides is responsible for the diagnosis, not you, but you still make a decent living helping them. It would also be a job where mistakes ARE tolerated, a profession where someone would not be harmed permanently by an error.

You might also consider a career in academia, pursue a MS or PhD in a Biology subject. A lot of PhD programs provide a stipend and some will even provide some graduate tuition reimbursement.

Best of luck to you. I think you made the right decision.

 

[20DOC20]

I was also going to suggest that you look into joining the Forest Service. With a BS in Biology you could probably be employed as a Wildlife Biologist - without a PhD. You make good money, too.

 

[20DOC20]

We had a girl in our optometry class who was sweet and sensitive, displayed no signs of depression or mental illness during optometry school. She was one of the nicest people I'd ever met. We were the same age. I graduated very young at 25 and so did she.

She died of stomach cancer about 15 years into her optometry career. I found her FaceBook page and talked to her mother. Optometry had been very hard on her. She changed jobs a lot, would be so stressed out by mid-morning that she'd spend her lunch break in her car crying her eyes out. Then she'd finish out the day.

Finally, near the end, she found a nice position she liked but by then it was too late. I told her mom that Optometry killed her. Her mother agreed with me. In fact, her mother was worried about ME of all things after I described my tumultuous career to her. I was very touched by that.

Anyway, the main difference between that girl and me is that we react to stress differently. I get angry instead of sad, and anger is less likely to impair you. If you're more like my friend than me, which it sounds like you are, Optometry will eat you alive.

I never observed the bad side of optometry in the required observations of optometrists before I started Optometry school. I think patients are polite when an observer is in the room and also the doctor might not schedule as heavy a load if there is an observer. I don't know. Man, if I'd known the truth, I'd have never taken that career path.

I've been in situations where you're expected to get a FULL exam done (even if they have contact lenses) in 20 minutes and if you don't, expect to be fired. Period. There is no pity and no second chances. It's competitive because there are too may of us and you can be replaced on a dime. This situation pops up in all modes of practice, commercial, working for MDs or private practice.

On top of that, places like LensCrafters will fire you if you make 3 mistakes total in your documentation. Their chart is a series of boxes that you check off and if you mistakenly miss one you are automatically fired. (They conduct regular reviews of your charts). So, the pressure is on! Do a lightning fast exam with a perfect refraction and perfect documentation or you're gone.

If your reaction to stress is to cry, then you'll be practicing impaired. You must have thick skin these days just to survive, or you'll die an early death like my friend did.

I strongly suggest to you, for the sake of your health and lifespan, to seek a different career. I wish you all the best.

 

[20DOC20]

And ... corruption is rampant. Some places will even pressure you to fudge your final visual acuities just so patients can get referred for cataract surgery earlier than what Medicare would normally allow. So, there's that, too. Oh, and if you don't comply, you'll be fired because there are lots of unscrupulous ODs out there waiting to snatch your position right out from under you!

So yeah, it's now getting hard just to earn an honest living.

 

[GypsyHummus]

I didn’t realize Optometry was so stressful! On the outside looking in it seems like a pretty good deal; no call, very little blood or communicative diseases, people generally like going to the eye doc (as opposed to the dentist), 100k+, out in four years, etc.

What can be done to change the course direction for optometry?

 

[pnw256]

And ... corruption is rampant. Some places will even pressure you to fudge your final visual acuities just so patients can get referred for cataract surgery earlier than what Medicare would normally allow. So, there's that, too. Oh, and if you don't comply, you'll be fired because there are lots of unscrupulous ODs out there waiting to snatch your position right out from under you!

So yeah, it's now getting hard just to earn an honest living.

You make some good points but at the rate you're going you are just using OP's misfortune to advance your own agenda and express your own feeling about the field. Lenscrafter's business management strategy and your personal struggles in the field are totally unrelated to the subject at hand.

Also I'm disappointed that you tried to attribute your classmates' unstable career to her developing and dying from stomach cancer. There is close zero evidence in scientific literature to support your statement. As a medical professional, please refrain from making uneducated statements like this. It's damaging to the image of our field. Thank you

 

[TheREALoptometrist2015]

Sharing such a story takes courage. im glad you are getting the help you need. You are not the only one who's gone through this. Many have. We had 2 students at IAUPR deal with the same thing. Both were in the class behind me and it was a new curriculum. One tried to throw themselves out of a window on school property during a party, the other one turned to cutting and drinking and more than one suicide attempt. Both situations were poorly handled by the school and the students were harassed and made fun of, yes made fun of for being "dramatic". HOWEVER, I believe both made it through the program and are working with no issues today. professional school is daunting and stressful. As you can see some have difficulty dealing with the stress but that does not mean you won't be successful if that is what you want. Mental illness is no joke, yet many still treat others poorly ridicule and put down those who are afflicted. With the right medication and therapy program you can learn to control your anxiety/depression and be successful. Dont give you if being a Doc is what you want. Thank you for such bravery in sharing your story. I can only imagine how hard it must be.

 

[20DOC20]

You make some good points but at the rate you're going you are just using OP's misfortune to advance your own agenda and express your own feeling about the field. Lenscrafter's business management strategy and your personal struggles in the field are totally unrelated to the subject at hand.

Also I'm disappointed that you tried to attribute your classmates' unstable career to her developing and dying from stomach cancer. There is close zero evidence in scientific literature to support your statement. As a medical professional, please refrain from making uneducated statements like this. It's damaging to the image of our field. Thank you

Exactly what’s my agenda? I’ve been an optometrist 22 years and am preparing to retire from it. I want to go into residential contracting and Interior Design. I have no monetary incentive to deceive you.

I’m telling the truth. You haven’t a clue what you’re getting into.

With regard to my friend, according to her mother she was under a great deal of stress caused by optometry. Let’s connect the dots NOT using common core math or mindlessly quoting studies. Stress can cause acid reflux which can cause stomach ulcers, which if left untreated can lead to stomach cancer. There you go.


Optometry is no picnic and as the field grows increasingly saturated, so does the competition and intraprofessional ferocity. Optometrists used to support one another and there was great comeraderie, but now, your biggest enemy is not the MD down the street, but the OD down the street. It’s terrible how ODs are treating one another. It wasn’t like that 20 years ago.

 

[20DOC20]

Lenscrafter's business management strategy and your personal struggles in the field are totally unrelated to the subject at hand.

One question for you: Why are you defending Lenscrafter's? The only ODs who would defend that company would be those who are satisfied working with them (and there are some who genuinely are) and those employed within the upper-level management of Lenscrafters who find forums like this to defend their beloved corporation.

Anyway, you brought up my personal struggles in the field and I'm glad you did.

It's sad that Americans have become so shallow and materialistic that they judge the success of another person solely upon the amount of total income that person has attained over a lifetime. I may have not had great monetary success in Optometry, but I am very proud of my Optometric Career. I made an honest living (and ironically that's the cause of my lack of monetary success).

Every MD office I've worked for was committing Medicare fraud, and they milked the government for a LOT of money and got rich off it. It's really, really, really common. I didn't turn in the first because they forced me to sign a nondisclosure agreement. The second office - I have no solid proof or smoking gun. The other doctors were doing the deed and I was kept out of the loop on that because they knew I wasn't cooperating.

The MDs and ODs together defraud the government by doing unnecessary cataract surgeries. Medicare won't pay for a cataract surgery unless the best-corrected visual acuity is worse than 20/40, usually around 20/50 give or take. Now, OD's get a co-management fee (I believe it's 20% cut) payable by Medicare. They refer a patient for surgery, get 20% of the Medicare reimbursement and the MD gets 80%. Now, an MD often pairs with an unscrupulous OD, either as a referral source or as someone employed by them, who will deliberately fudge the refraction. That way, the best-corrected acuity meets Medicare guidelines for cataract surgery and no one is the wiser.

The MDs defraud Medicare also by performing unnecessary blepharoplasties, overtreating glaucoma or having an excess of suspects, and performing unnecessary anti-VEGF injections. The blephs are billed by deliberately fudging a confrontation field, allowing an old patient to fall asleep in the visual field machine, then doing another field with eyes taped open. You make money on glaucoma by visits and tests so you over-diagnose the suspects and bill out for each test with a separate office visit, have them return quarterly (and this is actually now mandated for the first year), and then the fraud comes in with this process NEVER ending. At some point, a patient should be removed from the suspect list if after ten years no test has ever changed! OD's defraud in this area, too. One OD in Idaho, I believe, went to prison for having too many glaucoma suspects. They caught him because they monitor vital statistics and he had something like 50% of his practice being glaucoma suspects when the national average is around 20 percent. He got on their radar, failed the Medicare audit and went to prison for 5 years. The MDs defraud with regard to the injections in terms of repeating injections in eyes whose best-corrected are worse than 20/400. That is, performing injections to improve vision in an eye that is functionally blind and will never improve. Yet, the government pays for that injection anyway. The moral thing would be to STOP at that point.

You'll see patients ADORING these MDs because they get early surgeries, free lid lifts, but they're used as pawns in this whole scheme. It's been like this for years! I was shocked at my first closed-door office meeting with only the doctors, staff excluded. The whole ophthalmology business does general exams just to sift though the masses and find surgical candidates. That's how they make money. They see patients a pieces of meat. It makes me sick! We place our trust, our lives, in these people and all they want to do is milk, milk and milk those paying for your care so they can sip cocktails in Tahiti!

My career was lackluster because I refused to cooperate with Medicare or any other insurance fraud. I ran an honest business and I cared about my patients and I'm proud of that. I have nothing to apologize for.

Believe it or not, even some optometry schools are a scam. People see a profit to be made in optometric education and seek to take advantage of you and it's not fair! I've been involved in the hiring process for an office, for an OD, and I've made asked job candidates to do an eye exam for me on a real patient (under my license) and then I'd check their work. I was not impressed by the candidates I've encountered from the new schools. They're not teaching properly! They exist for the tuition money. One girl from one such school couldn't refract, couldn't chart. She was a full-fledged OD, too, not a student. There was a different OD who had graduated from UC Berkeley who I wanted to hire who was VERY impressive, but she had some issues with her VISA and ended up working in Canada. I have nothing bad to say about UCB. It's the only OD school I'd recommend.

Getting back to the original topic, if you're a sensitive person, you won't be able to handle this profession. At some point, it will crush your spirit.

I am on this forum under the assumption that any reasonable person who clearly sees what this profession is about would never venture into it and even if I manage to become a full-time (I'm part-time at the moment) Interior Decorator or enter another field, I ethically feel I must still pop in time to time to warn people away. No one should have to go through what I went thorough. It's been 22 years of Hell.

I don't regret these years. I've learned a lot, grown as a person. Optometry has taught me exactly who I am, and I really like that person. Unfortunately, this profession doesn't reward honesty and integrity anymore.

Anyway, to the original poster or anyone who is of a very sensitive temperament: one approach is to force yourself to do the opposite. Try being a military optometrist first. You'll have to go through boot camp and then you'll have to learn how to "suck it up" at work, or they'll discharge you. If you're mentally fit, you'll adapt. If not, you'll be discharged. Period.

Other than that, my best advice is to pick a profession that's commiserate with your temperament and talents. Best wishes.

 

[pnw256]

One question for you: Why are you defending Lenscrafter's? The only ODs who would defend that company would be those who are satisfied working with them (and there are some who genuinely are) and those employed within the upper-level management of Lenscrafters who find forums like this to defend their beloved corporation. Any optometry student (as you claim to be from your profile information) who defends them is simply naive and cannot possibly know that which they are defending.

Anyway, you brought up my personal struggles in the field and I'm glad you did.

It's sad that Americans have become so shallow and materialistic that they judge the success of another person solely upon the amount of total income that person has attained over a lifetime. I may have not had great monetary success in Optometry, but I am very proud of my Optometric Career. I made an honest living (and ironically that's the cause of my lack of monetary success).

Every MD office I've worked for was committing Medicare fraud, and they milked the government for a LOT of money and got rich off it. It's really, really, really common. I didn't turn in the first because they forced me to sign a nondisclosure agreement. The second office - I have no solid proof or smoking gun. The other doctors were doing the deed and I was kept out of the loop on that because they knew I wasn't cooperating.

The MDs and ODs together defraud the government by doing unnecessary cataract surgeries. Medicare won't pay for a cataract surgery unless the best-corrected visual acuity is worse than 20/40, usually around 20/50 give or take. Now, OD's get a co-management fee (I believe it's 20% cut) payable by Medicare. They refer a patient for surgery, get 20% of the Medicare reimbursement and the MD gets 80%. Now, an MD often pairs with an unscrupulous OD, either as a referral source or as someone employed by them, who will deliberately fudge the refraction. That way, the best-corrected acuity meets Medicare guidelines for cataract surgery and no one is the wiser.

The MDs defraud Medicare also by performing unnecessary blepharoplasties, overtreating glaucoma or having an excess of suspects, and performing unnecessary anti-VEGF injections. The blephs are billed by deliberately fudging a confrontation field, allowing an old patient to fall asleep in the visual field machine, then doing another field with eyes taped open. You make money on glaucoma by visits and tests so you over-diagnose the suspects and bill out for each test with a separate office visit, have them return quarterly (and this is actually now mandated for the first year), and then the fraud comes in with this process NEVER ending. At some point, a patient should be removed from the suspect list if after ten years no test has ever changed! OD's defraud in this area, too. One OD in Idaho, I believe, went to prison for having too many glaucoma suspects. They caught him because they monitor vital statistics and he had something like 50% of his practice being glaucoma suspects when the national average is around 20 percent. He got on their radar, failed the Medicare audit and went to prison for 5 years. The MDs defraud with regard to the injections in terms of repeating injections in eyes whose best-corrected are worse than 20/400. That is, performing injections to improve vision in an eye that is functionally blind and will never improve. Yet, the government pays for that injection anyway. The moral thing would be to STOP at that point.

You'll see patients ADORING these MDs because they get early surgeries, free lid lifts, but they're used as pawns in this whole scheme. It's been like this for years! I was shocked at my first closed-door office meeting with only the doctors, staff excluded, and the MDs whom everyone, even me, adored revealed themselves to be inhuman POS. The whole ophthalmology business does general exams just to sift though the masses and find surgical candidates. That's how they make money. They see patients a pieces of meat. It makes me sick! We place our trust, our lives, in these people and all they want to do is milk, milk and milk those paying for your care so they can sip cocktails in Tahiti!

My career was lackluster because I refused to cooperate with Medicare or any other insurance fraud. I ran an honest business and I cared about my patients and I'm proud of that. I have nothing to apologize for.

Believe it or not, even some optometry schools are a scam. People see a profit to be made in optometric education and seek to take advantage of you and it's not fair! I've been involved in the hiring process for an office, for an OD, and I've made asked job candidates to do an eye exam for me on a real patient (under my license) and then I'd check their work. I was not impressed by the candidates I've encountered from the new schools. They're not teaching properly! They exist for the tuition money. One girl from one such school couldn't refract, couldn't chart. She was a full-fledged OD, too, not a student. There was a different OD who had graduated from UC Berkeley who I wanted to hire who was VERY impressive, but she had some issues with her VISA and ended up working in Canada. I have nothing bad to say about UCB. It's the only OD school I'd recommend.

Getting back to the original topic, if you're a sensitive person, you won't be able to handle this profession. At some point, it will crush your spirit.

I am on this forum under the assumption that any reasonable person who clearly sees what this profession is about would never venture into it and even if I manage to become a full-time (I'm part-time at the moment) Interior Decorator or enter another field, I ethically feel I must still pop in time to time to warn people away. No one should have to go through what I went thorough. It's been 22 years of Hell.

I don't regret these years. I've learned a lot, grown as a person. Optometry has taught me exactly who I am, and I really like that person. Unfortunately, this profession doesn't reward honesty and integrity anymore.

Anyway, to the original poster or anyone who is of a very sensitive temperament: one approach is to force yourself to do the opposite. Try being a military optometrist first. You'll have to go through boot camp and then you'll have to learn how to "suck it up" at work, or they'll discharge you. If you're mentally fit, you'll adapt. If not, you'll be discharged. Period.

Other than that, my best advice is to pick a profession that's commiserate with your temperament and talents. Best wishes.

How am I defending lenscrafters? I said it's unrelated to the subject at hand. In my limited exposure to this field I already have very little positive things to share about corporate optometry. I'm not defending them, nor am I trying to say your experiences aren't legitimate. My first line is "you make some good points..." In fact, I feel it is necessary that there be open dialogue and many means of communication between the leaders and experienced ones of the field and us younguns.

The purpose of my post is that I simply felt the content you left did not fit this thread in particular. Go reread OP's post - it's about the difficulties of optometry school and a warning to people to take care of themselves in optometry school. You turned it into a full-on "stay away from optometry" thread. Go post in that thread. I find the insight there valuable. All I'm saying is that if I were in OP's shoes, I wouldn't appreciate you rambling away. You're missing the point.

Also, since you seem to have discovered the stress-cancer link, please go publish something. Maybe you haven't worked in a research setting before but it's irresponsible for scientists and healthcare professionals alike to make reckless, unfounded, anecdote-based statements. It reads scarily like a lot of anti-vax "logic."

 

[KHE]

The MDs and ODs together defraud the government by doing unnecessary cataract surgeries. Medicare won't pay for a cataract surgery unless the best-corrected visual acuity is worse than 20/40, usually around 20/50 give or take. Now, OD's get a co-management fee (I believe it's 20% cut) payable by Medicare. They refer a patient for surgery, get 20% of the Medicare reimbursement and the MD gets 80%. Now, an MD often pairs with an unscrupulous OD, either as a referral source or as someone employed by them, who will deliberately fudge the refraction. That way, the best-corrected acuity meets Medicare guidelines for cataract surgery and no one is the wiser.

.

A couple of comments.....

While I will agree that there are some unscrupulous and overly aggressive billers, that is not the norm. The notion that any optometrist is fudging refractions to get more patients to have cataract surgery is pretty absurd.

A comanaging OD gets 20% of the fee for comanaging. You surely know what the reimbursement is for cataract surgery. Most post op patients require three visits, one day one week one month. Some people have switched to a one day/two week model so it's only two post op visits.

Even with only TWO post op visits, I LOSE money seeing post op patients. I could put two normal exams into those appointment slots that I would use for cataract co-management and I'd make MORE money. God forbid the patient has any sort of complication and requires more than a couple of visits. Now you're hemorrhaging money. So if I'm going to "fudge" a refraction (which I'm not), it's going to be so the patient does NOT need surgery.

Regarding your friend.....the likelihood that the stress of an optometric career caused stomach cancer is really a stretch. First of, stomach cancer is almost unheard of for someone that young. Secondly, if stomach cancer was caused by acid reflux and stress, then stock brokers and air traffic controllers would all be dying of stomach cancer when they're 36 years old.

Optometry has it's issues. I struggled largely early on in my career. You need a plan for your career before you even enter school. If you enter school thinking you "will see how it goes" I would respectfully submit that that is a recipe for trouble.

 

[Purkinja]

Some of the sneakiest and most inconsistent billers I know are interior decorators.....KHE was spot on regarding post op care.......additional revenue loser dealing with DMERC when providing post op glasses