everyday's the first of the rest of your life
Week 7: Summary
Write an essay of ~1000 to 2000 words (minimum of 100 words is required) describing how each aspect of this ITP has helped you in your learning in this course of optometry.
Right from the start, from our very first team meeting, the tone of this ITP experience was set: first and foremost, it would not be like a field trip during my secondary school days where all I had to do was to show up. Instead, I was appointed logistics head, and by the end of the hour-long meeting, I had a list of to-dos and at the top of the list, I had to obtain quotations of vaccinations and insurance from our team. So right from the outset it was made clear to me that I, and everyone in the team for the matter, had to earn our keep, and contribute for this trip to be successful. The lecturers will guide us along the way, but it will be up to us to complete the tasks set for us. Such confidence, independence and initiative to execute an assignment will be intrinsic, I reckon, in year 3 whereby I have to manage patients in clinic. Sure, my clinicians will be there to counsel me, but it will be I, by myself, performing and dealing with the patients.
Furthermore, I knew few of my teammates since most of my friends and classmates opted for the Batam trip. As such, I had to learn to work with course mates, many of whom I did not know well, and even more challengingly, I had to assign these people who were effectively strangers quotations to seek out, items to purchase and equipments to prepare and pack. I soon settled in, and got to know a few more people and made several friends whom I would otherwise not get a chance to be acquainted with. This chance to mingle and work with some of my other course mates would soon prove to be invaluable with the shuffling of classes in year 3.
The first week of ITP was overwhelming and daunting initially. I recall waking up on Monday morning not knowing quite what to expect from ‘Clinic Orientation Week’, and the first thing that we were briefed about was the demerit point system. I was immediately put-off by the seemingly countless dos and ‘don’ts, but worse was to come as we proceeded to the revision of our clinical skills where we had to go about a full general examination under 90 minutes. I was overwhelmed as I had not performed these examinations for a considerable amount of time and now, I was expected to complete all of these tests (many of which I was still unsure about) under 90 minutes. On hindsight, it was a great refresher course of sorts that was to be of immense assistance for the screening in Indonesia, the week in clinic later in week 5 and will be, irrefutably, for clinic come the new semester. The preliminary uncertainties notwithstanding, I soon grew in assurance and competence as the testing week went on.
Week two was preparation for the departure to Jakarta proper and it was the first real chance for me to get to know my teammates better. There were items to be borrowed, arranged and packed, sure, there were modified clinical skills to acquire, learn and master, yes, and there was a unfamiliar language to pick up, but it was overall, a much less hectic and grueling week than the previous one and thus, we had more time to mix around and ‘hang out’. Additionally, I gained insight to the screening aspect of optometry, learning to provide the best possible care to a patient despite being under constrains of resources, to improvise, a useful aspect of optometry undoubtedly, but one that I would not have been exposed to had I not chosen to go on an OITP.
The third week spent in Indonesia can be considered the highlight of the entire ITP. It was in Kota Serang that I was exposed many of the different pathologies and conditions that prior to the trip were just a picture or a paragraph of words in the textbook to me. I came across cataract, macular degeneration and pterygium cases, among others, conditions that I would not have much chance to be exposed to in Singapore. Also, the sheer amount of patients ensured plenty of practice for clinical skills like opthalmoscopy and retinoscopy and we had to be swift, yet precise. This extra practice and experience gained would put me in good stead when it comes to clinic in year 3, where speed and above all, accuracy are required. Moreover, the 9 days spent in Indonesia allowed me to experience a whole new aspect of optometry. In Singapore, the emphasis is on me, as a professional and optometry as a profession, a job on what I can do to manage MY patients better, on how I can be a better optometrist, ME, or how I can earn more money for MYSELF. Yet in Indonesia, I was volunteering, as a more privileged member of the society, with nothing whatsoever to gain for myself, to put to use what I had been given, by grace, and to return in what ways that I can to the society and enhance the quality of life of others. This was the whole new side of optometry that I had the privilege to experience: optometry as a vehicle for service, whereby the fundamentals of optometry do not revolve around me and what I can do for myself. Curiously, it was from such service that the joy and the delight of the course emanates.
Coming back to Singapore, I was down with food poisoning, together with several of my other teammates, but still, work had to be completed and I dragged myself to school to work on the presentation and the video of the trip, but it was a fulfilling experience nonetheless, as looking through the pictures, the videos taken and describing to the SJI students what we did in Indonesia really brought home and reinforced the gratification and the relish that we tasted in Indonesia - the fulfillment derived from the recognition of the good that can be done through our vocation, and I staunchly believe that it is this fulfillment that will help me through the storms that are to come, as I continue my voyage in optometry.
Finally, there was the week in clinic seeing patients as we would when school re-opens, except that we worked in pairs and this helped greatly to lessen the step adapting curve of being left to our own devices and dealing with real patients as we would at least have someone to prompt and assist us whenever we were lost. Moreover, this week in clinic gave me a taste of what to expect in clinic and helped me familiarise with the modus operandi of SPOC.
All in all, I am certainly glad and grateful to have been presented this privilege to go on this trip and experience all that I did, from the initial feeling of being inundated, to the subsequent confidence that I gained, the new friends that I’ve made, the joy, the frustrations, the sense of achievement and so much more. I would not claim that this ITP has helped me merely in my learning of optometry; doing so would not do it any justice. Instead this ITP has been a life lesson, impacting many areas of my life, not least, my study of optometry.
a little over the top with the hyperbole me thinks, but hell, it's consider a literary style too, hyperbole.
and i discovered just how uncomfortable i am writing narratives as i had to for certain parts.