shadowing

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NYCBlues

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Hi all!

I have a question and I hope you guys could help me.

I have contacted many optometry offices asking if I could come in to shadow, but they always asked for my name and number and said that the optometrist would get back to me, but they never did. It is so hard for me to ask them to let me shadow.

How did you guys go about it? Please give me some advice. I really appreciate it.

Have a nice day!

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Hi

I have shadowed at 3 places. The first was at my own optometrist's office, where I did more clerical work than patient experience. I also was able to observe LASIK there. The second office was through a course at my school that allowed you to shadow and also had a discussion group with medical ethics questions. The third place I actually heard about on Oprah. It was the Boston Foundation for Sight and they developed a lens that allowed so many people to see! (www.bostonsight.org)

If you are in school or have the abiltiy to contact your pre-health advisor, I would think that would be a good place to start. See fi (s)he can recommend an office in particular or ways to ask politely to get the OD to return the call. What if you call back and just ask that you wanted to make sure your message was receieved etc....

Good luck!
 
NYCBlues,

you're going at it the wrong way!
this is what you do: you need to shadow an optometrist right?

call an optometrist, ASSOCIATE yourself with a University...
tell them "hello my name is Mr./Ms xyz" and I go to "XYZ University" and im involved with the pre-optometry yadda yadda and im applying to optometry school blah blah...

THEN YOU GIVE THEM 2 OPTIONS on dates. this is where you talk a little business..
(and just make it up)

tell them, "I will be coming to shaddow the optometrist either on wednesday at 1pm or saturday at 10am; will s/he be there at those times?".
(pick a busy practice, and know someone that knows the optometrist)

you'll get an immidiate answer, you'll see...

in this life, my friend, you cant be polite all the time and WAIT for people to call you back!! The world wont wait for you...
use your elbow a little and go get what you want!!

let us know how it goes ok?
 
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A nice low-pressure way to meet an OD is to find someone you know is going for an appointment, and go with him/her. It gives you a chance to see an exam on a person you know, plus it gives you a friendly introduction to an OD who will probably offer to let you come in a few more times to observe.

If you're feeling a little bolder, walk into an office on a slow day and just introduce yourself.
 
I remember just walking into the office and asking if I could speak to the doctor. I was so nervous that I would be rejected, but I just forced myself to ask and the doctor was very willing. I told the doctor that I was a college student thinking about a career in optometry and that I wanted to observe for a couple of days to see if optometry was the career path for me. The OD was excited to have me come in and told the other OD's in the practice that I would be coming in to shadow them as well.
 
NYCBlues said:
I have contacted many optometry offices asking if I could come in to shadow, but they always asked for my name and number and said that the optometrist would get back to me, but they never did.
Sometimes doctors honestly forget to call you back, or sometimes your message doesn?t get to the doctor. The times I?ve been in this situation I called again about a week later and told them that I had already called and that I wanted to check if it was OK for me to come in on Friday morning, or something like that. It worked every time.
Good luck
 
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