On Friday afternoon the clinic manager, Anny, came by my desk to tell me they'd scheduled me patients on Monday to be seen. Not that I am opposed to seeing patients (it's actually quite fun not to have to run through each case with a student) but if I am seeing patients for routine contact lens follow up, dilation, visual fields, then it means that a student is not getting the patient exposure. I don't need another patient in addition to the 20,000+ that I've already seen. Their graduation requirements state that they must see at least 100 to be qualified. Yes ONE HUNDRED. And they also must pass oral examinations, which they are taking today and tomorrow. After those two hurdles, they are free to practice as optometrists. I, however, am still not qualified here unless I take a massively expensive board exam (approx $6,000 NZ) which 70-90% fail.
I tried to reason with staff why it was so silly that I am seeing these patients and taking away from the students, but they didn't seem to see it through my eyes. I suppose, also, I am a little miffed to be the only person in my position who is in the clinic actually doing this. But oh well.
Regardless of my thoughts, I'm enjoying seeing patients, as it's been just one day shy of eight months since I've seen one on my own and have not conducted a visual field test on a patient since I was a student (like 8 years ago!) So today is a glorious day.
I did get to enjoy the sunshine on my back this morning as I walked myself into the clinic. And I must say it is fun having about 20 exam rooms to choose from. Even though I am only scheduled five patients, I decided to go ahead and run my clinic out of TWO exam rooms... you know why not? :)
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