Working as a Retina Tech

Retinal tears, holes, detachments oh my! My experiences working as a retina tech..

I've had the wonderful opportunity to intern as a retina tech over the past year and a half. During this time I have seen and learned about some really cool things! If you woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me what macular degeneration was or how floaters and flashes are caused, you bet I could answer you! Before I even began working as a retina tech I was shy, quiet and nervous when it came to interacting with people. It was pretty bad, I was even nervous when I had to call Pizza Hut to order a pizza! But now I bring patients into the room and I can confidently talk to them and interact with them. I've learned how to perform refractions, check a patients vision and pressure, numb their eye before an injection, perform diagnostic tests such as FA'S, OCT'S and even B-scans (ultrasounds). In fact, just yesterday I did a Bscan on a patient and got to see something really cool, a retinal detachment! I've seen quite a few of these, but this one was a mac off detachment in the right eye. Pretty cool right? (But not so cool for the patient!)

 This job has definitely taught me a lot about ocular diseases which is something I plan to focus on as an optometrist. It's scary how much information I have absorbed just by listening to the doctors talk to their patients. I know that a lot of these experiences will come in handy over the next 4 years, something I definitely look forward to!