As part of SCCO’s Clinical Outreach program and beginning in the summer quarter of each year, 4th-year students begin their first of four clinical rotations.  This clinical program consists of many sites all over the U.S., with some sites in Canada, Japan, and Guam. Sites can be in private practice, medical clinics, on military bases, and in private or group practices.  The various sites and their locales have distinctively different patient demographics.  SCCO students select their own clinical rotation sites, giving them the ability to tailor their last year of clinical education to their particular interests in the various specialties within optometric practice.  For example, should a student have an interest in pediatric optometry, a rotation site at a military base where families are the demographic would be the best choice.  Should a student have an interest in ocular disease, a rotation site where older patients (the demographic for ocular disease) present like a veteran’s hospital.  It is through this diverse clinical program that SCCO is able to give each student the spectrum of clinical experience necessary to yield a well-rounded clinical education.

This continuing series features a 4th-year SCCO student (now a recent graduate), Tiffany Chan, was off on a spring rotation in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Rotation 4 of 4 (Spring)

EPISODE 3 | Written by Tiffany Chan, Recent SCCO Graduate

Hello from post-graduation! Thanks for tuning in to the final of the “Adventures of a 4th Year” series. I skipped Winter Quarter’s California rotation – I’m sorry. For my Spring Quarter, I really did save the best for last… …Pear Harbor, Hawaii from late February to early May!

The weeks really flew by. At a military site rotation, all of your patients are 20-50 years old and healthy (minimal medical history compared to patients from other sites). However, this quarter brought in more acute mechanical injuries and traumatic brain injuries than all my other quarters combined. I also learned about the schedule of an optometrist serving in the U.S. Navy. My attending doctors saw slightly fewer patients per day, but as military officers, had many administrative responsibilities.

But now onto the part that all my friends and family ask about: living on the island of Oahu. Leaving for work every day, I packed my snorkel gear in my backpack alongside my laptop and charger. I could feel my weekends slowly running out as I tried my best to hike, snorkel, and rock climb as much as I could. The goal was to be dead tired when I returned to my apartment. My camera roll is full of the outdoors: myself and friends on the beach in between views of sunrise hikes and the near-daily rainbows. Almost every weekend, I went snorkeling where the coral beds are 3-4 feet thick and saw turtles eating and sleeping between schools of fish. The clinic staff told me I also had to island hop, so I took a 3-day trip to the Big Island (the island of Hawaii) with a friend from undergrad.

4th year rotations are an amazing chance to explore. I encourage you to travel. I learned so much from the different clinical settings and the wide variety of patients that came with them. I’m also incredibly grateful for the chance to experience living in 4 diverse cities.

Thanks for joining me here. I wish you the best of luck on your pre-optometry journey and look forward to meeting you on the other side!

All the best,

Tiffany

Check out Episode 1

Check out Episode 2