Optometry: Personal Narrative

I interviewed Ashley Porras, a Licensed Vocational Nurse at Sharp Rees Stealy. She gave me background information of how she got into the healthcare system, great advice and what she does on a daily basis. The reason I chose Ashley as the person to interview was because I got the chance to spend the day with her at work and I loved it. I found it interesting what she did and got the opportunity to learn more about her, her occupation and where she see’s herself in the future. Someday, I would be an LVN and gradually get higher in the healthcare field like she is doing now.

My first healthcare related experience, shadowing Dr. Osman at his dental offices, fortified my passion for

During the month of January, I had the opportunity to work at Riverside Medical Group to see what it was like to work in the healthcare industry. I learned many things about healthcare while at

As a senior at Summit-Academy North high school, I am required to participate in a job shadow with a professional in the line of work that I am interested in pursuing. On April 13th, I visited Flat Rock Physicians and completed my job shadow experience with one of the doctors that worked there, her name was Dr.Fretz. I was the only student shadowing her that say. While I was there I observed her as she completed her tasks as a family doctor. The reason why I chose to shadow Dr.Fretz is because I plan on going into a career in the medical field and I want to do something that'll give me the chance to help people when they need it and this type of career will give me that opportunity.

My decision to pursue a degree in optometry started from an unlikely source within the field of healthcare. I originally aspired to become a pharmacist and had extensive experience as a pharmacy technician throughout high school and the start of college. As I progressed I became more unsure of the profession, and did not feel as though as if I was making a difference. Patient interaction was minimal and I felt that having a more personable connection would make for a better healthcare professional. I always knew I wanted to become a healthcare professional, I just was not sure pharmacy was the path for me.

I worked with amazing providers that taught me various aspects of care, as well as patients who allowed me to be a part of their struggles in unexpected ways. In addition, I spent time teaching in a Medical Assisting program which allowed me to share my experience with women who had many of the same struggles I had had as a young mother. Finally, I worked as a Practice Manager, where I learned the art of leadership and how compassion must be balanced with structure in order to ensure the success of a business.

Discovery Program at Grady Memorial Hospital has inspired me to pursue an career in the medical field. Shadowing professions has helped to expand my knowledge about various jobs in the medical field. I got to experience how it's like in a hospital setting, witnessing a death from a cardiac arrest, seeing how a lumbar puncture procedure is done, and hear incoming patients through the dispatcher.

After my first year at UND, I took a CNA class and became employed at a nursing home in Menahga, where I am still working. At this job I was able to experience patient care and begin to see the benefits of helping patients improve their lives. In my time after High School I have also had many other valuable experiences. I have been a Camp Counselor at two, 1 ½ week Confirmation Camps for our church. At these camps it was mine, along with other Counselor’s responsibility to teach the younger teens about how we believe as well as demonstrate how to be respectable adults. These camps allowed me to use and develop my leadership skills and also created memories that I will never forget. I have also shadowed a few different Medical Professionals, in order to better understand the world of medicine. Dr. Dan Smith is a General Surgeon who lives and practices very near to where I live. I was able to shadow Dr. Smith for many hours and built a relationship with him. He showed me some aspects of the medical field that I may not have seen elsewhere. My life has been far from typical, but I do believe that each of my experiences has made me both a better person as well as a be

In addition to working full time as a research technician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I have been trying to gain more clinical experience. I have shadowed a few physician-scientists from my laboratory who are oncologist while they are at clinics. I have also been in contact with a family doctor whom I plan on shadowing every weekend starting in September. Most of the physicians I have shadowed in the past were specialists in their field and I feel it is important to expose to all types of different physicians. Shadowing a family doctor will give me a better idea of what being a primary care provider entails.

lead student panels for both medical school applicants as well as current medical students. I have served as a representative

just in time for that slow smile spreading across his face to be immortalised forever.

Having the opportunity to shadowing in primary care practices was most profound to my introduction of the practice of clinical medicine. It was through observing patient interactions centered upon the diagnosis and treatment of common medical conditions that I was able utilize medical information I had learned as an undergraduate to the actual application of practicing medicine. For instance, information about diabetes mellitus learned from my anatomy and physiology course was transformed into the physically diagnosis, treatment, and long-term management of the chronic condition in medical settings. Thus, shadowing in such a practice truly brought medicine to life for me. Likewise, while shadowing, I had the opportunity to listen to patients

My experience during clinical shadowing under Dr. Hussain was an eye opening experience in many ways. I learned than more than I expected. My goals for the seventy-five hours of clinical shadowing were to reinforce classroom concepts in clinical settings review patient charts and discuss patient diagnosis, differential diagnosis, and care options with individual physicians, and Practice soft skills learned in FCM on patients, while making clinical correlations by using material taught to us. My final goal was to gain stronger appreciation and better insight with real life experience, rather than just in a classroom. At the end of the day I wanted this experience to help find out what kind of doctor I want to be.

My inspiration for wanting to become an optometrist was jump-started by my aunt Rosemary. My aunt suffers from dry macular degeneration, and she first started losing her eyesight when I was about five years old. I have always been close to her, and I have seen her vision deteriorate. Today she can see peripherally. I have watched as she lost her driving privileges and was forced into an early retirement. I always viewed my aunt's condition without an appreciation of how lucky I truly was to have normal vision. However, In the summer of 2002 I visited an optometrist for the first time. Since that first visit to the optometrist 13 years ago, my eyesight has drastically deteriorated. I currently have a correction factor of -7.25 in my right eye, and a correction factor of -8.0 in my left eye. My vision has stabilized, but my high correction power, coupled with observing my aunt's macular degeneration, allowed me to understand that the gift of vision may not be an everlasting gift. I want to do my best to help people make the best of what may not be an enduring attribute of their lives.

Shadowing has been an incredibly satisfying experience for me. During the months of June- July 2016, I assisted in many medical areas including pediatrics, family medicine, pediatric emergency, obstetrics and gynecology. I have seen many different patients from an infant born with HIV to a teenage girl with severe bed sores who doesn’t want to leave her bed because she feels disabled in her wheelchair. Over the course of 17 hours, I shadowed five doctors, who gave me a personal glance into the day in the life of a physician. During this time, I assisted in taking patients to their rooms, ordering tests, and interacting with patients on a medical basis. Throughout the entire experience, one patient stood out to me. This patient was a regular