NBEO Part 3: Clinical Skills

Well, today was the big day.. the clinical skills exam. Four years of work boiled down to five ODs from across the country bubbling in my skill sets on a scantron. I forgot to do a few picky things, but overall I know I did well enough to pass part 3. The weird thing is, I don't even NEED part three to practice optometry in the state of Florida. In Florida, I have to take THEIR version of part 3. It's all so bizzare.

I wasn't really nervous about this exam at all until last night. About 930pm my friend Erin called to tell me about how the exam went for her. (they divided the class into four groups for testing purposes). Apparantely she got a really hard patient for the retinoscopy station (station 3) and didn't finish her vergence assesment at the end of the station. She missed an entire skill. She was very worried and a little freaked out. For everyone practicing in Texas there is a lot riding on this exam... you need it to practice optometry. Apparently every student who got this one particular patient with almost 5D of cyl, didn't complete station 3. Our group all knew this and prepared accordingly. (if you can't get the cyl, move on it's only a few points vs missing a whole skill)

After the exam I had to decompress. A few of us went to pei wei to eat and chat about the exam. We discussed the picky details we missed, etc. The nice thing for me is, I now know the picky details I missed and can plan accordingly for the Florida exam so I don't miss them twice. (yay!)
My other decompression for the day involved a pool, a book, my bikini, and playing ball with the dog. So, not such a bad day afterall....