Category Archives: SCCO

Why do a residency in optometry? Let’s look into the pros and cons.

Most optometrists who have ever done a residency in optometry told me they were glad they did it. Many people who didn’t do one say they are glad they didn’t forfeit the extra year of earnings and that they felt adequately prepared to handle things with the training they received during optometry school.

So what should a third/fourth year optometry student to do? What are the pros and cons of doing a residency in optometry?

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons:

Pros of an optometry residency:

1. You do get paid, probably to the tune of $30-35,000. Not a lot, but that’s 2 times my current spending budget in optometry school so it’s an upgrade!

2. You get REALLY good at something that might have taken many years to get good at. How many keratoconus, prosthetic eye candidates, low vision, or strabismus would you see in private practice? In a residency you’d see multiple EVERYDAY. In saturated optometry markets, carving a specialty niche can be very beneficial. Word of mouth referrals for niche specialists spreads fast which will help your bottom line.

3. Don’t have a job lined up? Don’t know where you want to set up your practice? Remember, in optometry you can succeed as long as you avoid the train-wreck. Ducking away for 1 year gives you more time to shop around for practices, interview, and network with other optometrists to find that perfect opportunity – and not being unemployed. Who knows, maybe the residency itself will help you find a job or partner who requires your unique expertise. Regardless, it’ll give you more time to more carefully examine your post-grad options without leaping for an opportunity out of desperation. Like John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach said, “be quick, but don’t hurry.”

4. Less need to refer because you are better trained. This keeps life more interesting when you can manage the more interesting cases.

5. If you plan on doing academia, teaching, or working in a hospital setting, then a residency needs to seriously be considered. Not only seriously considered, it might even be required.

6. You can apply and still withdraw if you change your mind (but only up to a certain point, afterward it is extremely bad form to not honor your commitment). So it doesn’t hurt to just apply up to a point. You never know what doors could have opened if you never gave it a shot.

7. Psychologically, it’s nice to know you’ve got something going on after you graduate rather than just twiddling your thumbs and nervously looking for fill-in work or a corporate gig after graduation.

8. You can still find fill-in work maybe a couple days a month if you choose to pad your income. I know of an SCCO resident who did just that.

9. Learning is fun. One of the major draws I had to going back to school after I graduated with my BS from UCLA was that I loved learning. In a work environment, you do learn some things here and there, but it’s not your JOB to simply learn. One of the fun things about a residency is that it is still mentored education. You’ve got more responsibilities and privileges, but it is still a learning experience.

10. Board certification passed last year at the AOA meeting. If your intention is to become board certified, I believe you get to leapfrog some of the time-requirements if you complete a residency. This could potentially be a great added benefit to doing a residency if board certification is mandated or looking very favorably on by insurance.

11. It is only one year, honestly.

Cons of an optometry residency:

1. You forfeit a year of real salary. Which can be significant if you’re tired of living life on strict financial restraint.

2. Applying for a residency is like applying to school again. You have to hunt for letters of rec and interview. Could be difficult if you never fostered meaningful relationships with your current faculty.

3. You might not end up geographically where you want to be. If you have a spouse or significant other, is it worth being apart for another year?

4. Not all residencies are created equal, you may end up just being at a “5th year” of optometry school.

5. You may feel already confident with your skill set and any future obstacles can be self-taught.

6. Once you start, you can’t jump ship in the middle of the year. Say you find a can’t miss opportunity, well you might have to wait until you are done with your residency and by then it might be too late. The practice you wanted was sold, the job opening was filled etc.

Why SCCO optometrists don’t want to do Private Practice

Why don’t future optometrists want to pursue private practice?

Because they realize they’re going to be broke the first few years out of optometry school if they start in private practice. That it’s a big risk, that working 9-5 and then going home sounds sweet after a grueling optometry school curriculum. And then they’re at Costco, or Walmart, or even a big HMO like Kaiser.

Why does this happen?

For the same reason I drove to Subway for lunch today. I’ve got sandwich supplies at home, but I still didn’t make my own sandwich because the thought of cutting up the tomato, getting the lettuce and turkey and mayonnaise to assemble my own sandwich was too great of a barrier to overcome. So instead I spent MORE time and energy driving around to spend more money on a sandwich that isn’t much better than what I could have made with the supplies at home.

I did it because of barriers.

Those that will have the most success in life recognize barriers quickly and ruthlessly tear them down.  Some barriers are obvious like needing a key to open a door, or opening a backpack to get a book. While others are invisible like the fact that not having a pen at my desk is an obstacle when someone calls and I need to jot something down real fast on a scratch piece of paper. Some barriers are helpful like when I want to stop surfing the internet mindlessly instead of studying, I drive to school and study there in the library or lounge.

But the number 1 obstructive barrier for anyone out there is simple. It’s not the local economy, over saturation of optometrists, OMDs, education,  or lack of money. Just look into a mirror.

It’s YOU.

Just as soon as you dream a dream, you start thinking of all the things that could go wrong.

“I can’t make it in Southern California because it’s so saturated.” When you should be saying “what are the things I need to do to overcome this barrier?”

“I can’t afford to go to optometry school.” instead of “how can I afford to go to optometry school?” (wait a minute, I think I read that somewhere in a Kiyosaki book…)

It’s why when I asked my friend about getting into private practice, she doesn’t ask me about where to find one, how to market and sustain it, or how feasible it is in certain locations. She asks “how the heck am I supposed to get a loan to buy one when I have no credit?”

Some people are afraid because they aren’t aggressive enough for private practice, that they have a hard time commanding people. But who says you need to have these traits? In the words of Dr. Paugh in lecture today, “it’s fine to be an introvert!”

How do you know you need to be aggressive to make a sale? Because you see salespeople on TV do it, or at a car dealership?

It’s more important to follow one rule. Really, just one rule.

Do what is best for the patient. If what is best for the patient happens to be more expensive, so be it, but always advocate for this and you will never go wrong when you advocate for what is best for them. If wearing polarized sunglasses while driving in the morning makes it easier to see, I’m recommending it. If wearing AR coating lets more light reach pass the lenses, I’m recommending it.

In the end, if you want to get from A to Z, don’t keep creating all these mental barriers that stop you from doing something even before you’ve started. If you want something, set a goal and go for it. I know I will, so good luck to the both of us.