As an undergraduate UK optometry student, you’re embarking on an exciting journey towards becoming a skilled eye care professional. Your lecturers and clinical supervisors play a crucial role in shaping your education and clinical experiences. To ensure a positive and productive relationship with them, here are some essential tips:
1. Punctuality Matters
Being on time is more than just a courtesy; it’s essential for the smooth running of clinical sessions. Ensure you don’t cause disruption by attending late as this is a sure-fire way of upsetting your lecturers and supervisors.
Balancing Act: Clinical sessions are carefully planned to accommodate all students. Lateness can disrupt the flow of the session. Often you will work in pairs or in groups – if you aren’t there, it means one of your peers may not have a partner and thus hamper their experience. If you are able – try and be there a good 5-10 minutes before your clinical sessions begin.
Professionalism: Consistently arriving late reflects poorly on your professionalism. It sets a precedent and can become a bad habit. Whilst you may feel that you can get away with it because you are a student, placements and pre-registration will take a highly negative view on this, affecting your reputation and future employability!
2. Arrive Prepared and Ready to Work
You are training for your professional career. You will always need to arrive at your clinical role prepared and ready to see your patients. Get into the swing of your future professional self by doing the following:
Dressing Appropriately: Wear your professional attire. Looking clinical and professional will help you get into the mindset of being an optometrist. Clinical dress, be it formal wear or scrubs, helps maintain focus on the job at hand. It is often comfortable and adaptable to the role, whilst preventing you from ruining your casualwear when using diagnostic dyes!
Furthermore, you want to make the right impression on your patient. Would you really want to be seen by a doctor or a surgeon that are wearing scruffy or non-clinical dress? Probably not. Neither do your patients! You’ll also make it easier on your supervisors as they won’t have to reinforce your university’s dress code every time that they see you!
Pre-Work and Pre-Reading: Complete any assigned pre-work or pre-reading. It ensures you’re mentally prepared and ready to engage. Nothing frustrates your supervisors and lecturers more than having planned the session around you knowing key principles set in pre-work then having to waste valuable clinic time explaining to you the basics!
Mindset Matters: Be awake, focused, and eager to learn. Whilst we understand that you are at university and want to enjoy the student life, training to be a professional requires you to start behaving like one. Try for a good night’s rest the night before the clinical session and avoid partying too hard – hungover optometry students that do not want to engage with the sessions make teaching techniques incredibly difficult. Additionally, if you did over-indulge the night before, you may not be safe to perform in the clinic. Keep that in mind!
3. Listen to the Brief
The briefing you get from your lecturers and supervisors at the beginning of a clinical session isn’t done for fun. It is part of the lesson plan and vital for the session ahead. Make the most of your session by:
Pay Attention: The brief provides essential information. Don’t waste time waiting for individual instructions. Your supervisors will be telling you all what to do at the same time. It does become fairly tiresome explaining the task 20-30 times a session because you weren’t listening to the instructions.
Follow Instructions: Doing what’s advised ensures you’re on track and maximises your learning. Sometimes there are key instructions given in the brief that are there to ensure you perform tasks safely. It may be something that you need to be fully supervised when performing until sign off (such as inserting a contact lens or performing contact tonometry). Don’t stress out your supervisors by ignoring the instructions given.
4. Embrace Independent Learning
University learning is different from that at GCSE and A-Level learning. Many students tend to complain “we were never taught that” and “why don’t you just give us all the information”, but part of working towards a degree is taking the time to learn independently. You will need this skill when you are qualified, so don’t expect to be spoon-fed every answer going forward. We aren’t withholding information for fun!
Prep Ahead: Research the topic before your session. It deepens your understanding and allows you to ask informed questions. If you have to write up a lab report or clinical session, why not try and write the introduction and method prior to the practical? That way you know what you are doing ahead of time and, should you do it well, you may end up having half a piece of coursework written by the end of the session!
Ask Detailed Questions: Supervisors appreciate curiosity. Show them you’re engaged and interested. A student asking a question that makes me stop and think shows me that they are wanting to learn and develop understanding. If it also means I have to go away to look things up, it helps strengthen the knowledge of the team teaching and may help others learn too. A student not asking questions sometimes comes across as a red flag that they are not engaged or wanting to further their understanding!
5. Keep Your Clinical Space Tidy
Hygiene First: Always maintain hygiene standards. Always. Start the clinical session by washing and drying your hands thoroughly and hand sanitise throughout. Hygiene is NOT a box-ticking exercise but an absolute essential part of infection control. Supervisors do not want to nag you on this and quite often hygiene forms part of a PASS/FAIL criteria on examinations. Get into the habit of hygiene procedures so that you do it automatically.
Organise Equipment: Put everything back where you found it. Lenses, instruments, and all other optical equipment will have its space in the clinic. Help yourself and others by keeping things in the right spot so that they can be found when they are needed. Supervisors usually have a lot to handle in clinical sessions and having to locate missing items is not a great use of their time.
Leave No Trace: Your station should be as tidy as you’d expect to find it. Quite often, university cohorts are split into groups for sessions and these sessions run back-to-back. If you finish your session and leave the clinical space looking like a child has had a birthday party in there, the supervisor and technicians will have to clear up after you, so that the students using the space after you have a clean and tidy space to work in.
This is also a strong habit to have once in pre-registration and beyond. You don’t want to annoy the optometrist testing in the room the day after you by having to wade into a messy room. Messy rooms also look awful to the patient – another reason to tidy up!
6. Turn Off Equipment You Aren’t Using
This should be common sense, especially as our parents have likely complained about turning off lights or televisions at home. Your supervisors will soon be sounding like them if you leave any clinical equipment on when you aren’t using it!
Energy Conservation: Slit lamps, ophthalmoscopes, retinoscopes, and keratometers generate heat and consume energy. As you may have heard, there is an energy crisis and climate change to be aware of. It costs a lot to run all the equipment concurrently so remember to switch things off once you have finished using them.
Cost Considerations: Be mindful that a lot of the clinical equipment within optometry uses bright lights. These are produced by very expensive specialist bulbs that burn out incredibly quickly if the equipment is left on for prolonged periods of time. Ensure that you aren’t costing the optometry department time, money and effort having to keep replacing bulbs, when a simple flick of a switch or turn of a dial will keep that item of equipment working for years to come!
7. Respect Their Expertise
The majority of undergraduate students entering a healthcare degree are naturally respectful by nature, but occasionally (either through personality or cultural differences), the levels of respect may vary. Respecting your lecturers and supervisors will garner a positive working relationship that will develop mutual professional respect.
Multiple Approaches: Optometry isn’t one-size-fits-all. There are various techniques and methods, each with its merits and pitfalls. Your lecturers choose what’s clinically and scientifically appropriate for teaching you the skills that you need to develop to become clinically competent. Trust their judgement and don’t try to play supervisors off against each other for having slight differences in approach.
Human Beings First: Remember that your lecturers and supervisors are not just educators; they are humans with their own thoughts and feelings, as well as seasoned professionals with a wealth of field experience in the field of optics and optometry. Respect their knowledge and the years they’ve dedicated to optometry. They are there to pass this knowledge and experience on to you.
Being a professional optometrist also requires you to be adaptable to certain situations and utilise a range of different techniques – therefore they aren’t teaching you things wrong, but providing you with further strings to your bow when dealing with real patients in the real world. That said, your supervisor SHOULD aim to provide instruction to work towards the content in your lectures, as so you have the best chance of acing the written exams!
8. Learning and Development
You will always impress a supervisor if you can demonstrate that you have learned a concept well and can perform a technique competently. That said, we will be even more impressed if you can indicate additional knowledge and understanding. Once you are qualified and a registered UK optometrist, you will be required to undergo continual professional development, so understanding this at an early stage of your career is key.
We Want You to Succeed: Contrary to popular belief, your lecturers don’t aim to fail you. Failing a student reflects poorly on them too and. They genuinely want you to learn, grow, and excel. The students that have failed examinations that I have been assessing will be the first to tell you how disappointed I am for them and will notice that the feedback we provide is there to help you work on the weaknesses so that you can pass the resit!
Competency and Safety: Passing exams isn’t about arbitrary standards and a box-ticking exercise. It’s about ensuring you’re competent and safe. Nothing is worse than students complaining that they haven’t been signed off on something when they clearly do not understand it.
Remember, if you are signed off on a task and someone asks you to repeat it – don’t get upset or say “I’ve already done that”, do it again! You should be able to do it if you’ve been deemed competent! You’ll also be doing that technique multiple times a day for the rest of your working career, so don’t get uptight if you are asked to do it one more time to make sure you are competent! If you fall short, learn from mistakes and strive for improvement.
9. Professionalism Beyond the Classroom
Your professionalism doesn’t only apply to the classroom. There are many ways that you can demonstrate professionalism in your day-to-day life that will not only help you grow, but keep you in the good-books of your lecturers.
Attitude Matters: Approach your learning with humility and eagerness. Be open to feedback and constructive criticism. Supervisors are not there to belittle you, nor are they there to make your life hard. If they suggest something or critique your performance, don’t take it as a personal insult – use it to build upon going forward. Soon your weaknesses will be at the same level as your strengths!
Collaborate: Optometry is a team effort. Engage with your peers, share insights, and learn from each other. Set up learning groups, both in person and online, which will help you share insights and tips. Use feedback that you have gained from supervisors and share this with your peers – as it may also help them to improve in areas they feel weak in.
Ethics and Integrity: Uphold the highest ethical standards. Honesty, integrity, and empathy go a long way. The General Optical Council are hot on honesty and any attempts to be dishonest or unprofessional are not looked upon kindly – and students have been known be struck-off the register for these attributes. If you don’t know something, don’t just guess it – be honest and tell your supervisors that you need help and they will be able to help. Cheating and dishonesty is a sure-fire way to land you in hot water, both with us and the GOC!
10. Beyond the Curriculum
Optometry students, along with your supervisors, are individuals too! You can bring your life skills and interests to your professional persona. Life experiences can help you tackle different problems and also add a touch of flair to how you work. Lecturers and supervisors love to get to know you as people and we can learn a lot from you too!
Stay Curious: Optometry evolves constantly. Read journals, attend conferences, and explore emerging trends. Current updates from The Association of Optometrists or the College of Optometrists can provide a wealth of knowledge about upcoming changes to legislation or other clinical news. Letting us know of any changes shows us that you have your finger on the pulse and demonstrating professional qualities.
Networking: Connect with professionals beyond your institution. Attend industry events and build a network. Your university is not the only one with an optometry programme – there are a number of them about. Engage with other students from these programmes and share tips, knowledge and understanding with them. Networking also will help you in the future – optometry is a small world and the more people you know the more opportunities that may present themselves to you in the future!
Remember, your lecturers and supervisors are invested in your success. Show them respect, professionalism, and a genuine desire to learn, and you’ll build strong relationships that benefit your optometry journey! 🌟Forum
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