Any opticians on here ? :)

[volkisdestroyingmylife]

I’m starting my pre registration year soon (official start date is September!) just wondered if there was any opticians on here who had advice/tips or guidance for starting it? My supervisor-to-be is great and has been extremely helpful with answering all my questions, but just thought I would ask here anonymously too if there were any opticians about who had any suggestions to make it easier or things they found that made it tougher.

TIA!

When finding suitable patients for your competencies, try and find patients who hit several competencies in one go.

For example, a patient with a family history of glaucoma, who has narrow angles, who you happen to use anaesthesia on to perform Goldman tonometry covers 4 competencies in one patient.

Don't overthink/overcomplicate competencies. For example, adverse side effects of medications can be as simple as longer darker lashes when taking prostaglandins, or steroid induced cataracts etc. Ocular side effects of systemic disease can be as simple as dry eye with underachieve thyroid or arthritis etc. It doesn't have to be the more interesting side effects.

Make sure your write every detail down. A common one pre-regs miss is not writing down whether Schafer's sign is present or not when examining patient's with flashing lights/floaters.

Read through all the competencies for all 3 visits at the beginning regularly so you remember them and recognise a relevant patient when they crop up.