hi everybody, i am going to visit an optometist working at a VA hospital and i am trying to come up with questions to ask her. Can you guys give my some good questions to ask? Thanks
perhaps this might help: do you work here full time or part time staff? Did you ever want to become a physician-ophthalmologist? Watch how you word this-be diplomatic-you know political. No arrogant optometrist will ever admit they wanted to become an MD. What do you enjoy the most working at the VA hospital? disease treatment- and ophthalm. consults? hours per day? salary? benefits? Do you feel like a real doctor working here and interacting with other healthcare professionals?
What made you want to work at a VA Hospital compared to private practice or retail? Prestige? Utilizing your therapeutic privileges and skills? etc............ Ask her if she is faculty in Optometry school.
VA Hospital Optometry is challenging and exciting if that is want you want to do. Alot of volume and trust me can become stressful.
Good Luck.
The only optometrists that I know of on this forum are Dr. Hom,TomOD, and Dr. Watson (ohh yea, don't forget RC). There are a few others, but they post very seldom.
(Maybe we need someone to kidnap a couple doctors from the Seniordoc website and bring'em over here )
Hmm, somehow i think i got you mixed up with TomOD cuz i remember reading the past forums and seen you around a lot. Oh well, but lazgirl24, you get the point.
is the salary really low if you work in the VA hospital. The doctor i talked too said that she needs to work in a private office b/c of the pay. o..she's a resident.
Well, first of all, pay should not be the reason you consider doing a residency, at all. Most optom residency programs pay around 30,000 for the year. You can look up the specifics of each program at http://www.opted.org/. While doing the residency, I have picked up a regular Saturday clinic and make about an extra 1000 a month. That defiantly helps with the bills.
If you are considering working at the VA, not as a resident, but as "house staff", you could expect around 60,000. That number will vary with a number of things like having done a residency, previous military experience, previous optom experience, advanced degrees, etc.