UHCO and PCO Clinic

[Optometry]

I was wondering if students at PCO and UHCO could tell me how much time they're in clinic, how many patients they see, when clinical experience starts, etc...?

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[cpw]

At UHCO you start praticing clinical skills your first week of classes. You start in a mock clinic setting practicing on your fellow classmates and learning techniques. By the end of second semester you've learned almost all of the techniques necessary to perform a routine eye exam. Your third semester you take what we call "the compentancy exam". The second year students perform an eye exam on the first year students in front of faculty members and are graded on performance. Mess up and you fail and are not allowed to enter the clinic fourth semester with the rest of your class. Needless to say the second years stress out big time about compentancy exam. Although, when it's all said and done you're in the clinic doing your first REAL PATIENT eye exam fourth semester. I'm not sure how many hours a week you're there, but I think it's like two exams a week your fourth semester and then you start rotating through other branches of the clinic after that. (peds, geriatrics, contact lens, etc)
Sorry I don't have much more info.. I'm only a first year and the details are sketchy to me. I'll learn them more as my second year student mentor goes through it. Every first year student is assigned a second year student mentor to help them through the transition to professional school (and give them the gigantic binder of ten years worth of old tests in every class) VERY handy to have. Hope this helps and good luck with your decision. PCO,ICO, and UHCO are all great schools. Good luck!

 

[Optometry]

That helps. Thanks, cpw.