4th Year Outreach Clinical Education Program
Adventures of a 4th Year: Maggie Francisco’s Blog
It is with great pleasure that I present this new blog series from 4th year student, Maggie Francisco, SCCO Class of 2016.
Maggie began her time here at SCCO, right from the get-go as a 1st year, as our work study student here in Admissions. We spent a lot of time in one-on-one chats about her journey through optometry school. I’m going to sound like an old geezer now when I say that I cannot believe she is in her 4th year and soon, so soon, will be Dr. Maggie Francisco!
She’s quite the experienced blogger and helped me with many Optometry Admissions blog projects as part of her duties as a work study student. I expect her blog journaling will be creative, candid, insightful , and fun—all to the reader’s delight.
At SCCO, a 4th year student’s last year consists of three four-month rotations in what is known as the Clinical Outreach program. Students select from one of 80+ rotation sites coast to coast across the U.S., with some international sites as well. I invite you to follow along as she blogs about beginning her first rotation at Hu Hu Kam Memorial Hospital (HHK) in Sacaton, AZ. This rotation site is in a hospital is on an indian reservation and is part of the Indian Health Services program set up by the US government.
I’m not going to spoil the suspense by telling you in advance where else her rotations sites will take her. You’ll just have to stay tuned! And now, here is Maggie…
Life as a Fourth Year by Maggie Francisco
Let me introduce myself…
My name is Maggie Francisco and I’m a 4th year (wow, it feels weird to say that…) at SCCO at MBKU. I’m originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and went to the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA for undergrad. I have wanted to be an optometrist since I was 15 years old and haven’t stopped moving since! I’m a huge eye-nerd and I get really excited about the weirdest things—crazy eye injuries, retinal detachments, macular holes, finding cranial nerve/muscle palsies—but then again, I think just about all of my classmates will tell you the same thing.
Read Maggie’s Blog and make sure to bookmark this blog or subscribe so you won’t miss a single entry! She’s completing a residency after graduating in 2016, and so there is more to come!
Read “about” Maggie.
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Categories: 4th Year Outreach Clinical Education Program, Student Life
Tagged as: Adventures of a fourth year, getting into optometry school, Maggie Francisco, Marshall B. Ketchum University, optometry, optometry school admissions, SCCO Outreach program, southern california college of optometry, Student Life, Student View
Published by Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO
I wanted to be an optometrist when I was only 10 years old. Why? I had some kind of odd fascination with eyeglasses. I was obsessed with getting a pair of my own. In my situation, having perfect eyesight was a distinct disadvantage, so I had to hatch a plan. After lots of squinting in class, I approached my teacher and lied with conviction, complaining that I couldn’t see the blackboard. This symptom got me first to the school nurse and then finally on to an optometrist for an eye exam where I tried my best Mr. Magoo impression to no avail. I would have to wait two more long years until the gods finally smiled on me when, by some miracle, I acquired enough astigmatism to warrant my first bona fide set of prescription eyeglasses! Along with my love of people and wanting to take care of them, subsequent visits to the optometrist and shadowing, I sealed the deal—optometry was now officially what I wanted to do with my life.
I made first contact with the Southern California College of Optometry when I was in 8th grade. My older sister had a newly minted driver’s license and so I coerced her into driving me all the way from our home in La Mirada to Los Angeles, then SCCO’s home. After a master planning effort to plot out our route with a paper map folded in 8 places (I had such a hard time with that map!), we arrived at SCCO where my sister quickly surmised that I didn’t have an appointment with an admissions advisor. She called me a loser, drove me all the way back home and the next day, phoned to help make the requisite appointment.
I entered high school in the late 1960’s (ouch, that hurt) when young females wanted to be anything but what I’d chosen as my newly dedicated pursuit—a science geek. I wore thick horn-rimmed black eyeglass frames (told you I was serious) and hung around chemistry lab after class. This was at a time when women just did not pursue careers in science and being the tomboy that I was, that was fine with me. This trend continued right through into undergrad, attending many classes where I was the only female--bespectacled or not--in the class. At a recent high school reunion, many of my classmates still remember me as the science geek with the blinders on—many envious of my joy and passion for my future profession.
I graduated from SCCO in 1977. Looking back with 35 years of experience as an optometrist, I am awed to know that I chose this wonderful profession way-back-when and with only my juvenile perspective to inform me. In 1977 when I graduated from optometry school, the profession began a series of major changes to its practice scope: securing the rights to use diagnostic drugs (dilating drops), securing the rights to prescribe therapeutic drugs (huge change!), being recognized as physicians by the federal government and treating glaucoma. In some US states, optometry has made even bigger strides into minor surgery, use of lasers, hospital privileges...etc. If I had the opportunity to go back and make another choice and knowing what I do today about health care and my own hardwiring, I’d make the same choice for optometry--nobody loves this profession more than I do. http://www.ketchum.edu/index.php/about/administration-directory
I grew up with optometry and now it’s your turn to inherit its future. That’s what this blog is about—getting you into optometry and I am just the person to help you achieve this goal. We’re going to talk about the admissions process, how to prepare to take the OAT, how to be a competitive applicant, how to prepare to interview, to name a few. We’re going to talk about SCCO, student life and what it’s like to be an optometric intern. I am just the person to help you because I am very persuasive, motivating and I am completely sold on optometry as the best profession in health care and I speak from experience.
Get ready to dialogue. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and please, chime in on discussions. I want to know what I can help you with.
View all posts by Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO
Eryn Kraning, Director of Admissions, SCCO
Jane Ann Munroe, OD, Assistant Dean of Admissions, SCCO