Pediatric Optometry and Vision Therapy - Fullerton Eye Care Center

• Briefly describe the patient population and types of disorders that routinely present at your clinic. Also, provide the typical number of patient encounters you have in a day.
  • The patients I saw ranged in age from infants (3 months) to the elderly (90’s), but the majority of patients were school-age children.  I saw a good mix of strabismus, amblyopia, non-strabismic binocular vision disorders, and visual perceptual problems.  I also had several traumatic brain injury patients and saw special populations every Thursday.
    
    
• Describe other activities that you are available to participate in besides direct patient care. (i.e. Grand rounds, internal lectures, interaction with other health professionals, staffing of student interns)
  • In addition to patient care, I had the opportunity to staff student interns in pediatric and vision therapy clinics, present case study lectures to the third year students in Strabismus and Amblyopia management course, as well as help instruct the strabismus diagnosis lab.  There were plenty of fill-in opportunities in primary care clinic on the weekends or off days from residency schedule that I took advantage of.  We were able to shadow a pediatric ophthalmologist, Dr. Jennifer Simpson at UC Irvine for 6 months.  One unique aspect of the SCCO residency is the opportunity for pediatric contact lens experience, which each resident participated in for 6 months.  There were also volunteer opportunities in Special Olympics and Vision Screenings.  The research opportunities with the faculty were excellent.
    
    
• Briefly describe the setting of the clinic and the surrounding area.
  • The SCCO campus and Eye Care Center are state of the art and beautiful!  Each resident had her own office and exam room with computerized VA chart and therapy activities.  The therapy was typically done in the exam room, but if specialized equipment was needed, the therapy rooms were well equipped.  The campus and clinic are in Fullerton, which is safe and suburban.  I lived in an apartment within walking distance of the campus, but a car is definitely a necessity.

• What are some strengths of the program and what areas do you feel need improvement.
  • The program has been in existence for such a long time that most of the kinks have been worked out.  It is very well rounded program with a little bit of contact lenses, a good amount of pediatrics, vision therapy, and special populations, and brain injury.

• Briefly describe the geographic location/area of your residency program (what should one expect).
  • The area is suburban with plenty of recreational activities at both the beach and the mountains.  The beach is about a 20-30 minute drive from Fullerton and the mountains are 45 minutes away, with great hiking and skiing in the winter.  However public transportation is not great, so a car is a necessity.

• Has your residency thus far been what you expected?
  • Absolutely!  It has been better than I expected.  The experience in binocular vision and perception was invaluable as far as my confidence level in diagnosing and managing those conditions.

• What were your reasons for applying for a residency and have they been addressed?
  • I applied to the residency because I wanted to see more peds/VT patient, I wanted to learn more about research and have the chance to design my own project, and I didn’t want to close any doors because I wasn’t residency trained.  I definitely got the experience and I had several great job opportunities open up before the residency was over.  The research experience was excellent.  It was worth all the work and the faculty were incredibly helpful and knowledgeable in the area of research.