Translation Please!

We’ve been to two ribbon cutting ceremonies in the last couple of weeks. They’ve been fun, but at the same time annoying. The first was a couple of Wednesdays ago. It was the opening ceremony for a new, and really cool, technology centre for the blind and visually impaired. Surprisingly the Faculty of Optometry had nothing to do with it but the dean thought it appropriate enough to require all students to attend.

The requirement for all students to attend caused one of Swell’s classes to be canceled, which was the disappointing aspect of this ceremony. The centre itself is fascinating. It has about 5 computers that are specifically designed for use by the low vision and blind. It has a voice box that tells where the curser is. It has a device that will translate printed text into Braille. There is one program that causes pins to rise in a box that will allow the user to read what is on the screen. Another program translates printed text into Braille and then sends it to a Braille printer. They also have the opposite ability – to transfer Braille into written text – so that the student can work on something and then make it legible for the professor. It was a really neat demonstration but was preceded by a very boring 45 minute ceremony. Boring because it was, naturally, in Arabic.

Our second ribbon cutting ceremony took place last Tuesday right here in the Faculty of Optometry. It required that all classes for the day be canceled. Again, only Swell was affected but she is holding a make-up class as I type this. The plan for this event started out as an open house. The students were making up posters and presentations – I wrote two short, short papers to help one of the students, that were, of course never used. The students were going to use this open house to show off the facilities and to explain what an optometrist is, etc. Well the Dean decided at the very last minute to change the whole purpose of the day. We were completely unaware of what she changed it to. The event was attended by government ministers, university higher-ups as well as some students and interested community members. There was a brief (30 minute?) series of speeches at an auditorium followed by an open house complete with ribbon cutting ceremony. Swell and I just went with the flow - I actually hid in the office because of the enormous crowd in the hall. I hate crowds of people.

On Wednesday a non-optometry student dropped by to ask for an eye exam. I was all: “Whaaat?”. Turns out that our lack of skill in the Arabic language made it so that we missed the official “opening” of the on campus Optometry clinic... that we’re in charge of.

My thoughts on this new development:

1) I do not want to see patients
2) The clinic is not at an operating level yet
3) The students are the ones who should be seeing patients with our supervision
4) The students are NOT anywhere near being able to see patients
5) Thanks for the heads-up

So I shrugged the student off indicating that we weren’t ready to see patients – not good when you’re hoping to get a clinic up and running with good PR NEXT YEAR! See I gave the suggestion that we start seeing patients NEXT YEAR but apparently next year was too far off and this week sounded better. We don’t have all the things we need to do an exam – like exam forms, appointment book, drops, referral list, policy and procedures books, staff to see the patients, etc.

When Swell and I went to talk to the Dean we basically decided that clinic would open soon and that the teaching assistants would no longer be allowed to function solely as paper-weights. They are trained optometrists and they would see the patients with my help. The students will, hopefully, begin to help out in the clinic, with my supervision and the supervision of the TA’s next year.

In the meantime we need to get a clinic organized ASAP and deal with those students/staff who think that we can see them at a moments notice. Nice.

I’ve been recruited to help write an editorial to, hopefully, be published in an Optometric Journal. It is on the same topic I’ve written on in the past. I’m trying to move away from pointing out flaws to developing solutions and writing about them, however, it is an opportunity too attractive to pass up. I wrote my small section and hopefully will have more to do in the near future.

All students failed the practical. It was on retinoscopy, which is taking a light and shining it in a patient’s eyes. With the movement of the light you can determine a patient’s prescription. Useful for infants, children and the developmentally delayed. Also used as a starting point for the “which is better 1 or 2" part.

They did the test on Swell or I. The prescriptions they found ranged from slightly farsighted to very nearsighted. All over the map. It was like watching someone pick up a retinoscope for the first time with no clue how to use it. They blamed everything from the lighting in the room to the lenses they were using. In reality, I think its safe to say they didn’t know what they were doing. Sure they can list the steps on paper but when it comes to actually doing it they have no clue.

Next Sunday is round 2. This time they only need to do one eye and I’ve made it easier for them. I told them today that this is unacceptable. They are still passing the buck. I’ll talk to the dean tomorrow or Tuesday. Their exam went better than the practical but they still got spanked just a little.

Swell’s class is doing much better. Just more motivated. It’s fun.