Why Optometry and not Ophthalmology??

[Batlauren]

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Hey fellow pre-optometry students!! I'm just curious as to what's going to end up on this thread. (no Rosanna, you don't have to post me a novel--I already know your reasons 😉 ) As for everyone else, post away!!

P.S. ICO finally sent me my acceptance letter!! That took a lifetime!! I should have called the admissions office like rpames!!

 

[r_salis]

Batlauren -- Congratulations on your ICO acceptance!!!

I chose optometry over ophthalmology because I like the lifestyle and opportunities available to optometrists, and also because I don't want to spend the next 900 years in school. Optometry is going to be a second career for me (I was a software engineer for several years) -- I chose it because I liked the combined clinical and social aspects of being able to help patients with eye care. I think surgery would be fascinating to go into from an academic perspective, but the trade-offs and sacrifices I'd have to make for medical school are not worth it for me at this point in my life. And frankly, I think I'll enjoy the day-to-day interactions with people who are looking for a comfortable contact lens a lot more than dealing with someone who needs emergency surgery to remove a tree branch from his eye. 😛

In short, optometry rules! 😀 😉

 

[Eyegirl2k7]

Congrats on your ICO acceptance. WE LOVE ICO!!


Anyhoo, there's a great thread about this on the opthal forum. check it out!

Eyegirl

 

[rpames]

GO ICO!!!!

As was stated above, the OD life style is vastly superior to many other fields of medicine. I have met very few MD/DO's who have been pro medicine. The first day of work for the orthopeadic surgeon this summer, he gave me an article to read the moment he walked into the office. It was entitled: "Doctors working more and enjoying it less." Many other MD/DO's who I have spoken to about medicine all told me to really re-think that choice. From what they all told me and my knowledge of their life style, I'm not really drawn to it much anymore.

For many years I was very pro medical school and either OMD or orthopeadic surgeon. Then after I thought about it, it is not worth the life they have. Instead I can go to ICO and enter my father's practice. I will be able to make more than the average MD (not right away) and actually have time for my family. I will still perscribe meds, remove foriegn bodies, treat infection, and much more. It is a very clean field, without a ton of stress. VERY rarely is there a situation where you could kill someone, maybe perscribe a med the patient is illergic to or interacts with someother med, but overall it is not going to happen. My father almost killed a patient once, not is fault. I can remember what exactly happened but it was one of two things, the patient was illergic but did not know, or the rx interacted with another med the pateint didn't report taking. It turned out ok, but my dad was a little shaken at first.

Sorry I got off topic. 🙄

 

[J.opt]

Can optometrists do surgery on cataracts?

 

[Rosanna]

Hey Lauren!

Congrats about ICO!! =) Good luck in SUNY and Newenco! I look forward to your notes in Microbio lab.

- Rosanna

PS: Remember to repeat to yourself: I am NOT Josh Groban's #1 fan! =)

 

[rpames]

OD's can not perform any surgery. We can and are involved in pre and post surgery. In the morning a patient will have the surgery, and in the afternoon they are at the OD's office.

Some OD's do remove cysts from the lids, but it is a gray area. "The powers who be" don't say they can...and they don't say they can't. It is a procedure one probably won't learn in school. There is of course a move to allow ODs to use lasers such as the YAG. This is used to remove secondary cataracts, which aren't really cataracts at all.

I think we will be using lasers in 6 years.