Pupillary Pathways

Studying is stressful. Whether you are preparing yourself for an ocular disease midterm, practicing gonioscopy for a practical examination, or studying for the upcoming NBEO, devoting a significant amount of your time and energy to learning is a complex process.

Stress is an inevitable feeling that accompanies your body’s response to being under pressure. It is important to know that not all the stresses that come along with your studies are bad or harmful to your productivity. A certain amount of stress can actually be a useful part of studying; it can assist you to work harder, to be more focused, and can even enhance your efficiency.

On the flip side, too little, or too much stress can prevent you from studying effectively, and extremely high-stress levels can be very damaging to your mind and body. 

Most of your patients will tell you that they know a fair amount about LASIK surgery. They’ve researched it, their friends or family members have had it done, they hear ads on the radio for it, etc.

But not everyone who is interested in laser vision correction is a good candidate for LASIK surgery. In some cases, patients may be best served by having PRK (photorefractive keratectomy) instead. Although still widely performed, most people have never even heard of PRK surgery.

LASIK surgery is the most common refractive surgery procedure that patients undergo to correct their vision. It has historically been shown to be a simple and safe alternative to wearing glasses or contact lenses, as long as a patient has been deemed a good candidate.

Even though patient outcomes are very positive in a high percentage of cases post-operatively, it is important to be able to properly handle potential problems that can arise from this type of surgery. Some of these issues are completely normal and expected in the early post-op period, so a little hand-holding and patient education will often be all these patients need, while other undesirable symptoms may require additional treatment.

Here we will review seven of the most common potential complications you may come across when co-managing LASIK patients. 

Answering questions about refractive surgery is something that you’ll do over and over again on a daily basis. If you practice in a primary care setting, you’ll likely have at least a few patients every single day that will ask you about laser vision correction and if you think they might be a good candidate for LASIK surgery.

Most patients have a friend or family member who has had LASIK, and they often know the basics of the procedure since it is so widely done. However, you’ll get a patient here and there who has done a little more research and may inquire about the SMILE procedure.

SMILE stands for Small Incision Lenticule Extraction.

As an optometric physician, you will see many patients every single day. You will find that a lot of your patients do not have a primary care physician that they see on a regular basis, or have not been to their primary care doctor for a physical examination in several years.

You may actually be the only doctor that your patient sees regularly or has been to in quite some time. Therefore, we have a responsibility to our patients to ensure that their overall general health needs and concerns are being met.

Take a few extra minutes during your exam to do a thorough case history and identify any risk factors for health conditions that may be undiagnosed or poorly managed.

Diabetes mellitus should be one of the conditions that we feel comfortable talking to our patients about.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a new oral medication for blood glucose management in adult patients with type 2 diabetes. Manufactured by Novo Nordisk, Rybelsus^® (semaglutide) is the first drug in a class of medications known as GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide) inhibitors that do not need to be injected.

This is very exciting news in that many patients with type 2 diabetes are not able to be adequately managed with oral medications alone, and often need to add injectables into their treatment regimen. Rybelsus^® gives patients a new option for treating their diabetes without potentially needing to go down that path. Below we will outline the important factors you should know about this new medication.

Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic disorders that is defined by the inability of the body to produce or respond to the hormone insulin. This can be the result of either defective insulin secretion, or target cell receptor resistance.

No matter the cause, this disorder results in imbalanced carbohydrate metabolism and subsequent elevated blood glucose levels. While the bodily processes that lead to the different types of diabetes are distinct, most of the lab tests that are utilized to diagnose diabetes are interchangeable and do not specify which type of the disease is present.

The main tests used to diagnose diabetes mellitus are the fasting plasma glucose test, the oral glucose tolerance test, and the HbA1c test.

Not everyone matches with an optometry residency program. If you do not end up matching with a site, please remember, this DOES NOT mean that you aren’t smart, that you aren’t good enough for a residency program, that your NBEO^® scores or GPA weren’t high enough, or that you bombed your interviews.

There are PLENTY of excellent candidates who just don’t end up matching each year for a variety of reasons. With that being said, that are also MANY wonderful residency programs that don’t end up filling all of their openings either. Therefore, there is still a great opportunity to get set up with a fantastic residency for next year.

It does not end here!

You’ve spent the past few months applying for residency programs, sending in all of your supporting documentation, traveling for interviews, and now comes the HARDEST part of the entire process: submitting your ORMatch Rank Order List!

This part of the process can be extremely stressful as it determines the next pathway that you will take in your optometric career. Where you end up for your residency year is a huge stepping stone that will help you determine where you want to practice, what type of setting you will practice in, and which specialty you will focus on within the profession.

‘Tis the season for all things residency! By this time, you have likely submitted all of your applications to optometry residency programs using the ORMatch Application Service. Now, the next couple of months are going to go by quickly with traveling for interviews, ranking your programs, and waiting for the Match results!