The coming week

Much to our surprise "Operation Hot Winter" is not over. In fact just today 40 plus Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers entered Nablus. They didn't impose a curfew, however, so school occurred as regularly scheduled.

Our students are starting to get concerned about the coming week. A look at our schedule will indicate why they are concerned.

On Monday the third years have the first of four exams in the classes we teach. Monday first thing is the first midterm for a class called Environmental optometry. The next day they have their first contact lens midterm and then on Saturday they have their ocular disease midterm and then on Monday the 12th they have their clinical exam.

We keep trying to reassure them that the exams won't be overly difficult but they are concerned none-the-less. My philosophy when it comes to exams is that they should be a learning experience, that is, they should allow you to leave the exam knowing more than when you went into the exam. If the exam does nothing but leave you stumped or feeling like the examiner tricked you that is a problem.

So my exams are basic concepts and reminders of what I mentioned was important from a clinical stand point. I won't test on the minutiae as that doesn't benefit patients. What is important is what the students will use when they graduate. The rest is just to make you sound smart when you're interacting with other optometrists.

This weekend I worked on my curriculum vitae so I would have something available on the off chance that there is someone to give it to when we're in Durban next week. (We leave in the evening on the 12th). While updating my CV I was struck by how poor it is. It's poor in a couple of ways.

From a public health standpoint I really don't have much going for me. A few short-term things, my degree, and my thesis. That's about it. Hard to get a public health job that will pay the bills with a CV so short on experience. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do a practicum while in public health school so I'm missing that experience as well as experience a lot of my colleagues gained while in undergrad. I was too busy in the department of science to gain experience in the realm of social issues, and volunteering or going on a long term peace corps type thing.

The second way my CV is poor is that in the four and a half years since I graduated OD school I have held way too many jobs. It is crazy how many places I've worked. It was beneficial in that I gained a lot of different experiences but it doesn't show much dedication to specific practices. For the first two years I was out of OD school I worked a lot of part-time jobs. Two days a week one place, one day another, two days at a third. It was difficult and not a fun way to be an optometrist. That's the price you pay living in a city that has an OD school.

Swell is pretty much ready to settle down and start becoming a full-time fixture in a community. She wants to purchase or start a practice. I hope to stop practicing optometry all together. Not because it's a bad profession or because I don't like it. I just have other interests now. I dislike the optometry I've been exposed to over the past four years ($29 eye exams and seeing 25 patients in a day - I think my record was 30 in a day plus checks and follow-ups) but I think there is a better optometry out there. Hopefully I'll be able to put my MPH to use in an organization that has at least some interest in vision services in developing countries. That is my hope but as I tell most people - I'll probably be doing optometry until I die. I'll have to find a different way to use my MPH if that's the case.

Anyway I don't know what the point of the preceding was. I do know that swell wanted me to tell all y'all that she has posted a bunch of pictures. She didn't take the time to label them specifically but they are divided into folders based on the location they were taken.

You can see them at: http://picasaweb.google.com/xmattodx