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6 Ways to Make the Most Out of Your Optometry Residency Year

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7 min read

Want to know how to make sure your residency year counts? Check out these 6 crucial steps to make the most out of your residency and enjoy future success!

6 Ways to Make the Most Out of Your Optometry Residency Year
So, you’ve almost made it! You’re about two months away from officially finishing optometry school, and you’ve made the decision to pursue a residency. Congratulations!!! It’s an exciting time for soon-to-be grads!
No matter which residency concentration you’ve chosen, the upcoming year has the potential to be one of the most fun, most educational, and most professionally enriching years you’ve had yet. This post will give you six ways to make sure those 365 days count.

1. Go to professional meetings

Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to attend one of the many optometry meetings while you were in school, but whether you have or not, it is extremely beneficial to do so as a resident. Why? For many reasons…
Below is a list of meeting dates and locations for some of the most popular conferences that will take place during residency:
  1. Vision Expo West
  2. American Academy of Optometry
  3. SECO
  4. Vision Expo East
  5. American Optometric Association

2. Make connections

You’ll come across a wide variety of new people during your residency year. Make it a point to get to know these individuals, both within the optometry world and the community. This is important regardless of whether you are doing a residency in a location in which you one day may choose to practice or not. Building bridges will only help you in your professional life, just beware not to burn any.
The optometry professional world is small. You’ll be amazed at how few degrees of separation there are between you and someone you’d like to connect with. Make sure the people you know are ready to be on your side, not against it.
By getting to know your advisors and becoming involved in your city or town, you’ll form relationships that will expand your network and broaden the base on which you can call in the future.

3. Teach

Almost all residency programs also have students at their locations. Use your time with them to share your knowledge, especially if you trained at different optometry schools. It is interesting to see how separate programs approach the areas of optometry in varying ways. Through teaching, whether in a clinical or classroom setting, you’ll challenge yourself to know the material on a deeper level, get to know your future colleagues, and likely learn something from them as well.
Don’t worry if you’ve never had experience with teaching. You don’t have to be a natural-born educator to get something out of working with students. Just have fun with it, and I promise it will be worth your while.

4. Present a poster or paper

You may be thinking, “I have no interest at all in academia or publishing once I’m in practice. Why do I care about presenting as a resident?” That’s a fair and understandable question. My answer to that thought is:
Your residency year is a time to try new things and see what you truly do and don’t enjoy now that you’re no longer a student.
Having to do papers or posters during your time as a student was typically not by your choice and often not on a topic that actually interested you. However, as a resident, these cases are completely yours. You’ll never really know if you might enjoy presenting your work unless you try it. Plus, you have a support system during residency. You have other residents and doctors to bounce ideas off of and give you feedback before you unveil your hard work to the optometry world. Use that to your advantage.
Like teaching, presenting challenges you to dig deeper into a topic. It also gives you practice speaking on a case or topic, earns points for fellowship in the Academy, and establishes you as someone to watch in our profession. All of these things are positive, wonderful ways to broaden your professional career and resume.
For those that choose to take advantage of this opportunity, there are many avenues for presentation as a resident. For instance, AAO has an entire day in which papers and posters authored by residents are presented to meeting attendees. If you don’t want to participate on that large of a stage, think about opportunities at smaller meetings or through an optometry school. Give it a try! You have nothing to lose!

5. Apply for fellowship

Becoming a Fellow in the Academy is something that can set you apart from your colleagues. It is an honor geared toward all ODs, not just those in academia. If you have any interest at all in taking this step, I strongly encourage you to apply for candidacy during your residency year. Here’s why:

6. Start job hunting EARLY

It’s never too soon to plan your future. The end of residency will likely be far from your mind when you begin in July, but the year will fly by. Don’t wait until March to start deciding where you’ll go from here. There are many things you can do to help pave the road to finding a successful practice home.
  1. Get business cards– this seems like such a small thing, but when you meet someone whom you might be interested in working with, it’s important to make a professional impression and leave them with something tangible to remember you by.
  2. Network– I know I’ve already mentioned this, but because it is so important, I’m saying it again. Build your professional connections because you never know when someone will know someone looking for a new doc. Get your name out there.
  3. Don’t be afraid to say what you’re looking for– whether you’ve just met a colleague or an industry rep, or one of the leaders in optometry, don’t be scared to tell them what you’re looking for. Make sure to do it in a respectful and humble manner, but if you don’t express where you’d like to see yourself, people won’t know to contact you if they run across that opportunity. Know what you want, and go for it.
  4. Utilize the newest job-matching platform– Did you know Eyes On Eyecare has a job platform? If not, you definitely need to check it out! It is the first-ever online job-matching site for eye care professionals. Instead of posting your resume to a generic job board, they allow you to match with practices looking for a doctor like you. When you sign up, you will create a profile expressing what you’re looking for and what you have to offer, and the system will show you what practices you have matched with. It’s never too early to create a profile, and the best part….it’s always FREE for employees.
Good luck, new grads, on your residency and your future! I hope the next year is everything you want it to be. Make the most of it! It’s your last year before you hit the real world…
Patricia Fulmer, OD, FAAO
About Patricia Fulmer, OD, FAAO

Dr. Fulmer is the sole owner of Legacy Vision Center, a cold start, medically focused practice in Huntsville, AL, which launched at the end of 2020. A graduate of the UAB School of Optometry, she completed an ocular disease and primary care residency at the Thomas E. Creek VA Medical Center before returning to Alabama to serve as the Center Director and consultative optometrist for a referral-based, tertiary care facility and then as an associate at a multi-doctor family practice. Her clinical interests include disease management, particularly glaucoma, uveitis, dry eye, and neurology-related cases, as well as educating students and colleagues through lecturing and writing. She is an active member in the American Academy of Optometry and American Optometric Association and currently serves her profession as a member of the Board of Directors of the Alabama Optometric Association and as President of the North Alabama Optometric Association. In her free time, Dr. Fulmer enjoys spending time with her husband and family, spoiling their fur-babies, traveling, attending concerts, and exploring the outdoors while kayaking and hiking. She also loves giving back through volunteering, including serving on the Board for HEALS, Inc, an organization that focuses on providing healthcare to local in-need youth.

Patricia Fulmer, OD, FAAO
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