Ferret Herder posted:
Ha…I used to not warn people about the air puff when doing non-contact tonometry, as a classmate pointed out that you get results more easily when people aren’t expecting the puff (for the first eye you test, anyway.) Then I had someone fall right off the chair. Now I tell people to expect a puff.
needscoffee posted:
Most places use a projector or a computer screen, and having the lights out improves the contrast of the letters. On the other hand, plenty of people see worse in the dark for various reasons. Lens changes are a significant factor here, as glare tends to be worse when the pupil is large (i.e. when the lights are off).
Not all places turn the lights off when checking acuity. Actually, the low vision center I’m externing at now uses an “ETDRS” chart which is softly back-lit with black letters and we test with the lights on. Generally people do better with this test than they do with standard projected Snellen (the common eye chart with the big “E” on top.) Moreover plenty of projectors have quite poor contrast of letters, even with the lights off, and people with ocular disease often suffer from reduced contrast acuity to begin with, so their projected Snellen acuity is actually an underestimate of their true acuity – this can make a big difference if they’re trying to, say, qualify for a driver’s license.
congodwarf posted:
Biology.
I was interested in the career ever since I was little, since I visited one every year (I’m pretty nearsighted). I wouldn’t say that I wanted to be an optometrist ever since I was little, though. My dad is a nurse and I think for that reason I always wanted to go into the health professions; it just took me a while to pick one! But I decided on optometry my junior year of college. The pre-reqs for all the doctoral level health professions are pretty much the same, so there wasn’t a rush to settle on a choice while I was in college.
Well, I have the pre-reqs completed because, as I said, they are similar to the optometry school pre-reqs, but that’s pretty much it; there’s no direct optometry-to-ophthalmology path. I’d have to apply to medical school and then, after medical school, complete an ophthalmology residency. I’m not sure I would have the patience for all that schooling at this point. Not to mention it’s rather competitive to match into ophthalmology!
Pretty much a straight path. I took a year off after college to teach Biology labs and work in a neuroscience/psychology research lab while I applied to optometry schools, though.
Hmm. I’ve seen some really gooey, purulent bacterial conjunctivitis cases. One person had a large bleb (from a trabeculectomy surgery) that was basically overgrowing the cornea, and that was lovely. The scariest, reddest eye I’ve seen was also a blebitis that looked like it was about to turn into an endophthalmitis, if it hadn’t already.
I’ve never seen a phthirus pubis infestation of the eyelashes, (aka eyelash crabs!) but those are some nightmare inducing textbook pictures, let me tell you. Here’s a nice photo if you’re curious:
http://www.opt.indiana.edu/riley/HomePage/Anterior_Segment/Graphics/279_alph_crab.jpg
Maybe eventually, but not immediately. I think it’s more useful to work for someone else when you finish your training, so you don’t have to worry about the business aspects of things right away. Right now I’m applying to residencies.