Hello and welcome to Medical Mondays! Once upon a time in 2010 when I was still volunteering as a patient advocate/medical interpreter for Paul Hom Asian Clinic, I was helping out at our annual health fair and got to interpret for the ophthalmology clinic!
It’s a good thing this was the case, because I randomly still remembered a bunch of medical terminology in Cantonese relating to the eye and was able to help out one of the patients! :]
Day in the Life: Ophthalmology
I spent most of my days during this rotation shadowing Dr. Michael Wong over at the Princeton Eye Group. He was a joy to work with, and was great at explaining different concepts + finding great examples of different pathology that I normally wouldn’t get to see.
He apparently won the Innovators Award by the NJ Inventors Hall of Fame for developing a technique to make cataract surgery much safer (colloquially called “the Wong Way” :P)!
During the rotation, I got to see a lot of different cases of the following:
- Routine eye exams
- Cataract surgery consultation/post-op management
- Posterior capsular opacification (foggy/cloudy vision after cataract surgery that can be treated with something called the YAG capsulotomy–a quick + non-invasive laser treatment that makes a clear opening in the posterior capsule membrane to restore your vision)
- Glaucoma
- Hordeolum/Chalazions
- Floaters
- Dry eye syndrome
- Macular degeneration
- LASIK surgery
- Diabetic retinopathy
- Concern for retinal detachment (no one actually came in with one–whew!)
In other news, Dr. Wong also happens to specialize in LASIK surgery and when I mentioned that I’d been meaning to get that, he managed to fit me in for a consultation in between patients on my last day of the rotation. I got to watch him do 3 of em’, and am planning on getting it scheduled for May after I take my boards and come back from vacation!
Yay for bubble tea! <3
- Do you wear glasses/contacts?
- Have you had LASIK? (Or are you considering it?) I’ll probably write about the experience after I get it done, so stay tuned!
- Did you know that the word “ophthalmology” has 2 h’s in it?! (Everyone always seems to forgot about the first one!)
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Oh what a cool experience to see the lasik procedure done before you go ahead and do it yourself. Look forward to hearing all about it
Agreed! I was slightly worried that it’d freak me out enough to not want to get it done, but it wasn’t bad at all! I’m thinking of getting it done probably in May! :]
Great blog! Thanks for the info!
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Thank you for stopping by! <3 Miss you!
I know LASIK is pretty safe, but just the idea of it scares me – I’ll be interested to see your post about it!
The idea of it definitely scared me too, but after seeing it done a few times, it actually kinda helped to quell my uneasiness! I’m hoping to get it done probably in May, so I’ll try to write about it afterward! :]
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Eyes freak me out, but I do know how to spell ophthalmology. ;-) I’m afraid of LASIK but not a good candidate for it anyway.
haha, you’re one of the few! ;P Eye and nail procedures tend to kinda freak me out, but watching a couple of these kinda helped for me!
Nice blog. First time I’m seeing a lifestyle blog from a medic’s perspective.
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Thanks!