A series of articles written by SCCO Student Ambassadors.

Insights From a New 3rd Year: How SCCO Prepared Me for Patient Care

by SCCO Student Ambassador, Maya Hanaoka

As a new 3^rd year, it’s crazy to think how far I’ve come in just 21 months of classes since starting optometry school! Here’s a quick overview of what our time looks like in clinic for the first few years at SCCO…

Starting early first year, we are assigned patient assist days at clinic, where we observe and help upperclassmen with exams. This helps us navigate around clinic and experience the flow of eye exams. There are also many opportunities to practice doing exams on patients who we are more comfortable with such as classmates, underclassmen, friends and family, which helps ease us into clinic as well. In terms of learning clinical skills, SCCO starts immediately in the first year teaching us many of the tests we do in clinic. In my first quarter, I learned how to do a manifest refraction (the 1 or 2 exam we all know), which a couple months prior I had no idea what 1 or 2 even meant.

During our second year, we got to bring some friends and family into clinic as patients, so my first “real” patient I did a complete eye exam on was my mom! I was so excited to show her all the skills that I had learned during the past two years, and I remember my mom was so surprised and impressed with the number of skills I had mastered already. By mid-second year, we had learned all the skills needed for an eye exam and then some, so I felt very confident in my skills going into third year.

Third year summer quarter (the first quarter of our 3^rd year) is when we first start seeing patients on our own at the clinic during longer shifts. While I felt confident in my skills, I was still a bit nervous about patient care, as I did not want to seem incompetent in front of patients or staff doctors and I started wondering if I was ready to see patients on my own. But after a couple weeks in clinic, I was in a groove and realized I do have all the skills I need to be a good clinician, I am good enough, and I will keep becoming a better clinician with more experience!  Our  staff doctors are very helpful, intelligent, and really care about making you the best doctor you can be. Having good preceptors who guided me in the beginning really helped ease me into clinic.

Starting to see patients on your own in clinic feels a little daunting at first, but SCCO does a great job of making sure we are proficient in the skills needed for clinic. With each patient encounter, I can feel myself becoming a more confident and better clinician, and I still have 2 full years of patient care experience before I graduate!

Click here to read Student Ambassador bios on our website!