My morale has improved considerably since my last post even though I didn’t quite manage to escape the barn. I started my ophthalmology rotation on Monday and on the first day, we worked out our on-call schedule, talked about thorough ophthalmic examinations, and jumped right into appointments. There wasn’t too much to see and we finished rather early. It was then that my resident asked who was on call that night. Of course, since no one ever gets called in for ophtho, I had already volunteered. Well, we had an emergency coming. It was a horse. I was going to be back in the barn. You can imagine that I was less than thrilled, but emergencies are always interesting. As much as I hate to admit it, I really feel like I’m learning a lot about ophthalmology from following this case so closely. I am responsible for 8 am, 12 pm, and 6 pm treatments (the barn technicians take care of the rest) and so I’ve gotten to closely monitor the horse’s eye. I’ve also gotten to have some one-on-one time with my resident talking about drug dosages and administration principles, etc. So even though I still have to start and end my day in the barn, it’s not that bad anymore.
By far, the best part about this rotation is seeing small animal clients. I went from appointment to appointment and I was having so much fun that I didn’t realize that I was hungry for lunch until it was 4pm. I know I probably won’t always be this enthusiastic, but I had one of those moments yesterday when I realized that I’m on the right career path. I was in the room with a client and his dog and I had just finished checking intraocular pressures and I had just started doing a fundic examination using indirect ophthalmoscopy (shining a light from near my eye toward a lens near the dog’s eye). I managed to get the optic nerve into the field within seconds. I had to smile to myself at that moment because I have never felt so much like a doctor as I did at that point in time. It probably sounds silly, feeling like a professional because I could see the optic nerve, but I’ve never been able to find it so quickly before. So I’m going to celebrate the small victories and say that I love seeing appointments. We will have some rechecks in the morning and I’m already going through a checklist on how to streamline my ophthalmic examination and how best to ask questions to take a good history. This is what I’m supposed to be doing.
Ophthalmology has shown me how nice clinicians and residents can be. I’ve made a couple mistakes (mainly doing tests when they were unnecessary) and instead of jumping down my throat and telling me that I did something wrong, my residents says things like “We usually don’t do schirmer tear tests on recheck appointments, but you did it this time and that’s OK.” And if I don’t come up with the right answer in rounds, my clinician says things like “Hmm, not exactly…but you’re on the right track.” I feel extremely supported and that makes me work harder. Working harder means that I learn more. Learning more makes me feel like a professional. It’s a great positive feedback loop and such a welcome change from my past rotation. I can’t wait to see more!!
