Category: Optometry Students
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The Dispensing Optician: Optics’ Best Kept Secret
The role of a dispensing optician is one of the most vital, yet often misunderstood, professions in eye care. They are the experts who turn an optometrist’s prescription into a pair of safe, comfortable, and perfectly fitted spectacles. Today, I am incredibly proud to feature a guest post from someone who champions this profession with…
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Optometry School Tips: Ways to Maximise Your Learning
As we approach a new semester and, for some of you reading this, the start of your journey into eye care, I felt it would be a great time to share some optometry school tips to help you all prepare. I remember my time as an optometry student vividly; the excitement, the pressure, and that…
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Providing Eye Tests for Those Experiencing Homelessness
This article for The Eye Care Advocate looks at how the charity Vision Care for Homeless People provide eye tests for those experiencing homelessness. Thank you to Aziza Kharodia – optometrist and clinic manager Vision Care for Homeless People in Gloucester for taking the time to talk to me regarding this important issue. Why Do…
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Starting Optometry School? Your Guide to a Great First Year
If you’re reading this, you’ve likely just had your A-Level results and have your place confirmed. First of all, a huge congratulations! The journey of starting optometry school and becoming an optometrist is about to begin! I can still remember that mix of feelings – the excitement, the relief, and definitely a fair bit of…
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AI in Optometry: A Clinician’s Guide to Safe and Ethical Use
When tools like ChatGPT first became widely accessible, I was intrigued. How could we use AI in optometry? The life of an optometrist is a constant juggle of patient interaction, clinical excellence, and commercial awareness. The thought of a tool that could help ease some of that cognitive load was exciting. But then came the…
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Survivorship Bias: Looking For the Evidence You Didn’t See
In this article about survivorship bias, we start by reflecting back to the 1930s. During World War II, the Allied forces wanted to make their bomber planes safer. They looked at the aircraft that returned from missions and carefully mapped out all the bullet holes. The logical first thought was to add more armour to…
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Buyer Beware: Unmasking the OpticX ‘Miracle’ Glasses Scam
Introduction As an optometrist, I’ve dedicated my career to protecting and improving vision. I believe in genuine innovation, but I also believe it’s my professional duty to call out dangerous products that prey on the public’s hope for a quick fix. A product called “OpticX” has been heavily advertised online with extraordinary claims, and I…
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Say Goodbye to Clinical Isolation: Introducing Ask Fellow Optoms
I’m sharing this post about the ‘Ask Fellow Optoms‘ app for one simple reason: it’s an outstanding free resource for our community. This is not a sponsored post, but a genuine recommendation for a powerful tool I believe every optometrist can benefit from. We’ve all been there. It’s the end of a long day, you’re…
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Lost in Translation? How to Talk to Patients Without Jargon
As experts in our field, we spend years learning the complex language of optometry, becoming fluent in anatomy, physics, and pathology. This knowledge is essential, but it can sometimes become a curse. The “curse of knowledge” is a real phenomenon where we forget what it’s like not to know these things, making it difficult to…
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Honest and Trustworthy: Foundation of Your Optometry Career
As you begin your journey in optometry, you will study complex clinical skills and absorb a vast amount of knowledge. But none of it will matter without the foundation upon which your entire career must be built: being honest and trustworthy. The GOC’s Standard 16 (“Be honest and trustworthy”) isn’t just a set of rules;…