what does clinically strong education mean?

[zaizian]

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An OD is educated to be the best clinician for the eyecare.
Therefore it is important for him/her to receive a strong clinical education.
Even the board exam is changing to be more clinically oriented.

That is why I chose PCO which is known for a strong clinical education than other optometry schools.

Im not saying other schools have worse clinical education, I am just saying that PCO is very reputational in clinical education.

Waterloo is rather a didactically strong school because the patient population around the school are generally quite healthy, and even if there are unhealthy patients, they are taken away by the waterloo grad optometrists near the University of Waterloo. That's why many waterloo grads tend to go for a residency abroad to enhance their clinical skills.

1)My question is, is there a difference between the quality of ODs who graduated from clinically educated insitution and those who graduated from didactically educated institution?

2)What sort of disadvantage would there be as a practicing otpometrist if you graduate from a didactically strong school that lacks top clinical education?

What sort of disadvantage would there be as a practicing optomerist if you gradaute from a clinically strong school that lacks top didactic education?


3)How do didactically strong school ensure that graduating students are just as proficient as other school students?

 

[Shnurek]

For example my school SUNY has a very strong clinic in all the sub-fields of optometry. We have contact lens, head trauma, pediatrics, low vision, vision therapy and ocular disease. A recent NOVA graduate said our ocular disease clinic is top notch. So, if you want to get a good didactic and clinical education come to SUNY. You will be crushed by the workload lol.

What advantage is this? Well when you come out people know the reputation of your school and they may choose to hire from specific schools only. Not only that but if you go to own your own space or practice then you will be better trained and therefore more proficient and you will have to refer out less for example. You might get sued less too. The advantages are innumerable. PCO does have a good clinic from what I saw.

 

[Tippytoe]

I'll say it before Jason does. NONSENSE. It makes absolutely ZERO difference what OD school you go to. They simply stretch out 2 years of training into 4 at all schools (for money and to make it a professional degree).

Anyone who thinks they will get a better or higher paying job or be sued less by going to one OD school vs. another is sadly mistaken (and a bit comical). The quality of your extern sites is what matters. Pick smart places like OMD offices or the VA or private OD offices. Don't extern at a commercial site (if that even allowed now.....wasn't when I was going through).

Your # 1 goal as a student is to go to the cheapest OD school you can find. In my career, I have probably been asked what school I attended 2 times (and that was just for someones curiosity).

All any store (your likely employer) will care about is whether or not you have a degree to hang on the wall so you can refract and they can sell glasses. They don't care if you are an alien from another planet or a 3 legged troll that lives under a bridge or if you got your optometry degree on-line from Billy Bob's Eye School and Chicken Farm.

If I were hiring you for my private office, I could not care less where you went to school (because they are all the same and they all have to pass the same licensing boards). I want you to show me maturity, clincial skills and people skills that will make both you and me money.

 

[Commando303]

I'll say it before Jason does. NONSENSE. It makes absolutely ZERO difference what OD school you go to. They simply stretch out 2 years of training into 4 at all schools (for money and to make it a professional degree).

Anyone who thinks they will get a better or higher paying job or be sued less by going to one OD school vs. another is sadly mistaken (and a bit comical). The quality of your extern sites is what matters. Pick smart places like OMD offices or the VA or private OD offices. Don't extern at a commercial site (if that even allowed now.....wasn't when I was going through).

Your # 1 goal as a student is to go to the cheapest OD school you can find. In my career, I have probably been asked what school I attended 2 times (and that was just for someones curiosity).

All any store (your likely employer) will care about is whether or not you have a degree to hang on the wall so you can refract and they can sell glasses. They don't care if you are an alien from another planet or a 3 legged troll that lives under a bridge or if you got your optometry degree on-line from Billy Bob's Eye School and Chicken Farm.

If I were hiring you for my private office, I could not care less where you went to school (because they are all the same and they all have to pass the same licensing boards). I want you to show me maturity, clincial skills and people skills that will make both you and me money.

I agree it's more important in finding (and keeping) work whether you're an intelligent, saleable person than which of the twenty O.D. colleges gave you your degree, but6 I'd also not advise you to make your decision of where to attend based solely on money. If a school happens to cost less than another, but you abhor the idea of living where it's situated, it may be worth the added expense to go elsewhere.

Also, I think the statement is ridiculous that the optometry curriculum contains two years' information, which it spreads over four.

 

[Shnurek]

I'll say it before Jason does. NONSENSE. It makes absolutely ZERO difference what OD school you go to.

I disagree. I talked to a few ODs and they say they would simply not hire anyone from a pre-accredited school or IAUPR.

 

[Jason K]

I disagree. I talked to a few ODs and they say they would simply not hire anyone from a pre-accredited school or IAUPR.

I'm assuming the discussion was only including accredited schools. Western U, Midwestern, Rosenberg, the idiotic school in Virginia, the garbage program in MA....they're all non-accredited. They're not even on the table because their graduates, when they have them, can't be hired until the programs receive accreditation status.

Regarding the absolute nonsense that a grad would be hired preferentially by someone simply because of their alma mater, it's just not so in optometry. Law - yes, medicine - yes, business - absolutely, but optometry? Shnurek, I know you somehow feel that you're being trained one step short of a neuro-ophthalmologist at SUNY, but you're going to have the same OD as the guy coming out of MCO, SCO, ICO, or any other program. No one is going to care. If you want to market yourself, tell them you're willing to work any and all hours of the day and night. It's going to be expected so you might as well offer.

Regarding the quality of your education. I can not agree more with Tippytoe's statement that it is the externships, not the school, that make the OD's knowledge base. You may think you're learning a lot in school, but hardly any of it will be used in practice. Sorry to burst your bubble. I had classmates that did all their external rotations at VT and peds sites where they stood around and threw bean bags at each other and watched vision therapists play with brock strings all day long. I wouldn't send my neighbor's dog to them.

I thank the heavens that I'll never have to staff you in a clinical setting. You're going to be one of those third years who "knows everything" on the first day of clinic.

 

[Shnurek]

I'm personally not too fond or interested in VT. I know it is a specialty in my school but I am more interested in ocular disease and I am willing to do externships in disease heavy sites. Our ocular disease clinic is top notch too so I don't think I'll be so much at a disadvantage. Hopefully they pass orals this year or next year in NY so when I get into clinic I will have the privilege of gaining experience with them.

 

[Jason K]

I'm personally not too fond or interested in VT. I know it is a specialty in my school but I am more interested in ocular disease and I am willing to do externships in disease heavy sites. Our ocular disease clinic is top notch too so I don't think I'll be so much at a disadvantage. Hopefully they pass orals this year or next year in NY so when I get into clinic I will have the privilege of gaining experience with them.

As usual, you missed the point, entirely. The example was made to demonstrate that a program is not going to get you any sort of hiring advantage over your thousands and thousands of competitors. If you think that "top notch" internal ocular disease preparation from SUNY will get you some sort of high-dollar ticket in the optometry world, you're just not aware of what's happening in the world. There's an OD, PhD with a VA residency in my area.....she flips dials at Walmart. Oh, and it's not by choice. And as I've said before, I'm outside of a moderate sized US city, but it's by no means, a "heavily saturated" area. The nearest OD school is definitely not in my back yard. It's just like any other place in the US that doesn't have more cattle than people.

Keep riding the "I'm awesome because I went to X school train." You'll soon realize that no one cares where you went to school. Openness to weekends and evenings and an ability to work for bus driver wages will help you, though.

 

[love4eyes]

I disagree. I talked to a few ODs and they say they would simply not hire anyone from a pre-accredited school or IAUPR.

I talked to a few ODs and they say they would HIRE someone from IAUPR. Since you shared your experience, I would like to do the same.

"OD is an OD" the statement I got from all the optometrist I shadowed from. All they care about is if you got a license and the possible profit you're able to generate.

Thus far, all I got are encouraging words and excitement of getting into a program.

 

[Shnurek]

As usual, you missed the point, entirely. The example was made to demonstrate that a program is not going to get you any sort of hiring advantage over your thousands and thousands of competitors. If you think that "top notch" internal ocular disease preparation from SUNY will get you some sort of high-dollar ticket in the optometry world, you're just not aware of what's happening in the world.

Keep riding the "I'm awesome because I went to X school train." You'll soon realize that no one cares where you went to school. Openness to weekends and evenings and an ability to work for bus driver wages will help you, though.

The new schools are around for the SOLE purpose of making money. They have no functional purpose in optometry other than to profit from students who can't get in anywhere else.

Their reputation is already tarnished, before they've even started. Take a look at the poll on ODWire concerning new programs. 95% of respondents were opposed to the new programs, with over 90% strongly opposed. There is a lot of animosity in the optometry community about the new schools and the reasons are obvious.

So 95% of practicing ODs, many with their own practices are against the new schools but yet it doesn't matter what school you go to when you go to get hired? Contradiction much? Jason I don't even know if you are a man or a woman. You sound so fake and distant.

 

[Jason K]

So 95% of practicing ODs, many with their own practices are against the new schools but yet it doesn't matter what school you go to when you go to get hired? Contradiction much? Jason I don't even know if you are a man or a woman. You sound so fake and distant.

FAIL. It will not matter where you go to school because you are all entering the same doomed profession. If I was not clear, private practice owners who would be in a position to hire a new grad will turn a blind eye to those coming out of the crap new schools. I'm not going to bother explaining the reasons why for 800th time. The vast majority of grads who seek employment anywhere they can, will do so in the competitive sea of commercial garbage positions. Those positions....NOT the private practice ones, will not care where you went to school. If you went to Berkely or some optometry school run out of some guy's basement - it won't matter to them since all they want is a warm body with the legal right to prescribe correction.

Does that clarify your confusion? You're a 1st year OD student, Shnurek. Like most other 1st years in just about any clinical field, you have no idea how much you don't know.