I am sooooooooo HAPPY that you did this interview! I'm at that rock bottom confused stage of my life right now where I have no idea what to do. Can you please do one with a speech pathologist??
@@KevinYeePharmD Hey!! I really like how in debt you went and the specific questions you asked. These are the types of videos that confused college students need to watch.
This is very very helpful. I am looking into optometry as a career (I am a high school student) and this interview answered a lot of questions I had. Thanks a lot man
I recently graduated w my bachelors in Biology. It truly resonated with me when he said he felt at rock bottom when he was soul searching. I feel like a failure and feel the pressure of my family and of my own self, because I thought I wanted to go to med school, but it’s not for me. Now I’m just stuck in this limbo trying to grasp at different careers and feeling stuck in life
It's ok to feel this way. With time, everything will come into fruition. It's better to take the time to discover your own career path than live a lifetime of regret and resentment.
Thank you so much for doing this interview. It's professional but so real and I personally find myself relating to what Dr. Nguyen was saying. Currently finishing up OD1 right now and I can't believe I didn't find a resource like this earlier!
I wish optometrists could merge with Ophthalmology. They should require optometrists to do residency after optometry school with Ophthalmologists and only optometrists that do residency get to do surgery. If you want to practice generally then you don’t have to do residency. Just like dentistry. After dental school you can do 3 years of medical school get the MD and be DDS/Md and do OMFS surgery. So why not have optometrists do an MD too and do residency to do surgery too. There should be pathways
omfs is exclusively for dental grads, regular medical school graduates can't do omfs, and so there is really only one pathway for omfs, which is through dental school. its not an "alternate pathway" by any means. ophthalmology already is an established pathway, and there is no shortage of ophthalmologists, so there's really no reason for there to be a separate pathway. besides, med school debt is usually a lot more than optometry school debt, and i'm sure that medical doctors will be unhappy that they had to take on way more debt than someone who pretty much back door'd their way into the exact same medical specialty (if optometry grads had the option to go into opthalmology).
@@NO1xANIMExFAN Im unhappy that an OMFS can do nose jobs when that should only go to plastic surgeons. Plastic surgery is a 7 or 5 year residency so it’s unfair that an OMFS can back door their way into the field
@@NO1xANIMExFAN You also don’t know anything about Opthalmology. There is a shortage in certain states. I wouldn’t be mad if I was an Opthalmologist and I only did 4 years of med school and 3 years of residency as opposed to an optometrist who did 4 years of optometry and then 2-3 years medical school and 2 years residency. Its more tuition and a longer route and they learned more and focused more on the eyes than an opthalmologist
Haha I never shot it. But maybe I should consider it. She's based out of Dallas so I need to fly back out there if I do it. I'm curious what are some things that you would like to know about it?
To optometry students and pre-optometry students here, what would you say each optometry school is like? The environment, course load, what you'd be doing there?
Each school as far as I can tell and hear from others have different policies in terms of grading and pass and fail classes. Course load is heavy. I had 16 classes which is about 21 credits. Mix of labs and normal classes.
@@briannguyen4078 Hi can you expand on how many classes per semester? how much time spent studying per day, how many classes to study for each day? Just the day to day routine type stuff to get a jist of what I'm getting myself into
@@rektscope8860 if you really wish to attend optometry school, I do wish you the best of luck my friend and wish it all works out for you. Different schools have different standards and how classes and grades are conducted and graded. The school I went too had about 16 classes, small classes along with bigger classes ( ones with more credits and higher stakes). I would highly suggest studying hard for the larger credit classes because you can’t fail those and failing about 2-3 will result in major consequences, remediation, or even dismissal. Grades needs to stay above 75% for all classes. This may sound easy but may become very stressful and difficult due to the structure of exams. For example, there are 30 questions and missing 5 or more is already a fail. No extra credit for all assignments, quizzes, and exams. And no tolerance for grades such as rounding up. However, the grades you obtain may have a curve due to the top students scoring higher than average or not. As for studying and classes. You will have to study and go to class 5 days a week. Weekends are for catching up. I personally had a more difficult time understanding and grasping the material fast, so I had to make up for it by staying up to 2 am average and progressively until 3 am everyday for about 4 months. I could of don’t things differently but when I had a routine down and was running full speed it was too late for me. So don’t make my mistake and take full advantage of any resources offered, and I recommend asking yourself do you have what it takes to finish what you started both mentally and physically. And if it does not work out, do you financially want to take the risk of doing it again.
@@briannguyen4078 hey. i just finished my undergrad in bio. i’m studying for the OAT now. what school did you attend? what was your gpa & OAT score ? how much experience did you have a doctors prior ? do you regret school ? sorry, for all the questions. i’m truly eager to know lol.
@@aricajackson7996 3.55 GPA bio degree. OAT was 78 percentile. Pacific university. Worked as an opto tech. And did many hours of volunteer work. Wish you the best of luck. Try hard. And don’t give up until you can’t go anymore.
Hey Kevin, have you considered interviewing an ND (naturopathic doctor)? This interview with Justin really got me thinking about optometry and I know I want to work in healthcare. Great video!
Your Career Choice is always interesting. As an E.E., I was interested in the science of the eye, and effective myopia prevention. Go from 20/50, to 20/20, by accepting that all eyes are dynamic Control Systems.
Great! After 4 miserable years of post bachelors degree, you will be under compensated. Obama Care has ruined optometry.. pays nothing. Too many optometry schools turning out too many optometrists. Your worst enemies are other optometrists that see young ODs as cheap labor. I graduated in 1981. It was okay back then because the O.D. profited from selling glasses and contacts. Now, Luxotica owns everything,profits from eyeglass sales and you are an underpaid refractionist. You have been warned. By the way, here is your tuition repayment coupon book... start paying on student loans, after 4 years in grad school with no income, while your undergraduate roommate bought a house and contributed to IRA and had nice vacation.
Dentists can and optometrists can open their own practices. If you are just wanting to be an employee. you are limited. If you want to be a boss and take risks, then optomerey is very much worth it.
Dont study optometry if you are from Pakistan. There is no respect, optometrists are limited to refraction, they cannot prescribe anything, cant call themselves doctors and there is a mediocre increase in the pay scale after doing mphil and PhD. For international students who might think what I am saying is wrong: Freshly graduated optometrists earn 240 dollars AT MAX in a month. And by doing multiple jobs they can earn up to 500 bucks. Even after doing PhD you wont earn much more than this when doing clinical work. Yeah we can earn better in private practice but since we cannot call us doctors and the public has no knowledge regarding vision sciences, therefore are seen only as a refractionist. Even the instruments like slit lamp are not taught/given to us for learning/diagnosing purposes. By: A random optometrist in Pakistan
Aww Thankss man! I found your comment very helpful. I took admission in optometry last week and my classes were going to start in November but I’ve been thinking about to change my program from Bs optometry to “Medical imagine technology /radiology. Is it a better alternate? I’ve planned to practice as a radiographer in uk after bachelors.
This video gives a general idea of the profession in the United States so its quite different from Pakistan. There are multiple 2ish-yr programs that are designed for foreign optometrists who want to practice in the states if you are interested.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I am sooooooooo HAPPY that you did this interview! I'm at that rock bottom confused stage of my life right now where I have no idea what to do. Can you please do one with a speech pathologist??
Thanks Asma. What was the best part about this interview?
@@KevinYeePharmD Hey!! I really like how in debt you went and the specific questions you asked. These are the types of videos that confused college students need to watch.
Happiness & Work/Life Balance...
I love this concept.
This is very very helpful. I am looking into optometry as a career (I am a high school student) and this interview answered a lot of questions I had. Thanks a lot man
Awesome interview...
Thanks for sharing. I’m entering OSU optometry fall 2021.
Congratulations on your acceptance!
@@christikahlo7988 Thank you, and I really appreciate it.
congratulations! we need more black women in optometry
@@sweetestthing3632 Thanks sweetheart. We do.
@@sweetestthing3632 I did engineering also. We need more black women in tech also.
I recently graduated w my bachelors in Biology. It truly resonated with me when he said he felt at rock bottom when he was soul searching. I feel like a failure and feel the pressure of my family and of my own self, because I thought I wanted to go to med school, but it’s not for me. Now I’m just stuck in this limbo trying to grasp at different careers and feeling stuck in life
It's ok to feel this way. With time, everything will come into fruition. It's better to take the time to discover your own career path than live a lifetime of regret and resentment.
Thank you for sharing. Currently a sophomore at undergrad struggling to choose a healthcare career.
I'm glad this helped! PA is also a really solid option too
i’m in this same sage now. sophomore biochem major with no clue what to do. if you don’t mind me asking did you ever end up picking a career?
Can you please give a comparison between optometry and Caribbean medical school? I side with optometry but would like feedback
I love this! I am a freshman in college and always wanted to do optometry, this video has been so helpful!
Love it! I'm glad it was helpful. What was the most important helpful thing that you took away?
Loool omg everything he said was my exact train of thought!
Great questions, and good job with maintaining the flow of the interview! The interview was really informative, and you're funny 🤣
Thanks man! Were there any questions that weren’t answered? Also what videos would you want to see next?
@@KevinYeePharmD Please do one with a PA!
tysm this was one of the best interview/informational videos Ive ever watched on youtube haha
Thanks! What did you like about the video?
Thank you so much for doing this interview. It's professional but so real and I personally find myself relating to what Dr. Nguyen was saying. Currently finishing up OD1 right now and I can't believe I didn't find a resource like this earlier!
I'll make sure to share that with him. Are these any questions that we didn't cover on this interview that you really enjoyed?
I really loved this interview! I start at UHCO in the Fall and this provided a lot of great info!
Best of luck to you!
Amazing interview!!
Thank you!
I wish optometrists could merge with Ophthalmology. They should require optometrists to do residency after optometry school with Ophthalmologists and only optometrists that do residency get to do surgery. If you want to practice generally then you don’t have to do residency. Just like dentistry. After dental school you can do 3 years of medical school get the MD and be DDS/Md and do OMFS surgery. So why not have optometrists do an MD too and do residency to do surgery too. There should be pathways
omfs is exclusively for dental grads, regular medical school graduates can't do omfs, and so there is really only one pathway for omfs, which is through dental school. its not an "alternate pathway" by any means. ophthalmology already is an established pathway, and there is no shortage of ophthalmologists, so there's really no reason for there to be a separate pathway. besides, med school debt is usually a lot more than optometry school debt, and i'm sure that medical doctors will be unhappy that they had to take on way more debt than someone who pretty much back door'd their way into the exact same medical specialty (if optometry grads had the option to go into opthalmology).
@@NO1xANIMExFAN Im unhappy that an OMFS can do nose jobs when that should only go to plastic surgeons. Plastic surgery is a 7 or 5 year residency so it’s unfair that an OMFS can back door their way into the field
@@NO1xANIMExFAN You also don’t know anything about Opthalmology. There is a shortage in certain states. I wouldn’t be mad if I was an Opthalmologist and I only did 4 years of med school and 3 years of residency as opposed to an optometrist who did 4 years of optometry and then 2-3 years medical school and 2 years residency. Its more tuition and a longer route and they learned more and focused more on the eyes than an opthalmologist
Thanks for the great content always!
Haha this was a much older video, but I just had to get it out 😂
Amazing interview!!!!! Very informational !
That was very thorough, thanks a lot 🙏🏼
Glad it helped! What were some of your biggest insights?
Hi
It's quite interesting to listen the perspective of fresh grad optometrist from USA.
Definitely a different from what we do in India.
What are some of the major differences?
Hi Kevin, great video! Did you end up posting the part 2 with the more seasoned optometrist? I can’t find it but would love to watch it
Haha I never shot it. But maybe I should consider it. She's based out of Dallas so I need to fly back out there if I do it. I'm curious what are some things that you would like to know about it?
To optometry students and pre-optometry students here, what would you say each optometry school is like? The environment, course load, what you'd be doing there?
Each school as far as I can tell and hear from others have different policies in terms of grading and pass and fail classes. Course load is heavy. I had 16 classes which is about 21 credits. Mix of labs and normal classes.
@@briannguyen4078 Hi can you expand on how many classes per semester? how much time spent studying per day, how many classes to study for each day? Just the day to day routine type stuff to get a jist of what I'm getting myself into
@@rektscope8860 if you really wish to attend optometry school, I do wish you the best of luck my friend and wish it all works out for you. Different schools have different standards and how classes and grades are conducted and graded. The school I went too had about 16 classes, small classes along with bigger classes ( ones with more credits and higher stakes). I would highly suggest studying hard for the larger credit classes because you can’t fail those and failing about 2-3 will result in major consequences, remediation, or even dismissal. Grades needs to stay above 75% for all classes. This may sound easy but may become very stressful and difficult due to the structure of exams. For example, there are 30 questions and missing 5 or more is already a fail. No extra credit for all assignments, quizzes, and exams. And no tolerance for grades such as rounding up. However, the grades you obtain may have a curve due to the top students scoring higher than average or not. As for studying and classes. You will have to study and go to class 5 days a week. Weekends are for catching up. I personally had a more difficult time understanding and grasping the material fast, so I had to make up for it by staying up to 2 am average and progressively until 3 am everyday for about 4 months. I could of don’t things differently but when I had a routine down and was running full speed it was too late for me. So don’t make my mistake and take full advantage of any resources offered, and I recommend asking yourself do you have what it takes to finish what you started both mentally and physically. And if it does not work out, do you financially want to take the risk of doing it again.
@@briannguyen4078 hey. i just finished my undergrad in bio. i’m studying for the OAT now. what school did you attend? what was your gpa & OAT score ? how much experience did you have a doctors prior ? do you regret school ?
sorry, for all the questions. i’m truly eager to know lol.
@@aricajackson7996 3.55 GPA bio degree. OAT was 78 percentile. Pacific university. Worked as an opto tech. And did many hours of volunteer work. Wish you the best of luck. Try hard. And don’t give up until you can’t go anymore.
Hey Kevin, have you considered interviewing an ND (naturopathic doctor)? This interview with Justin really got me thinking about optometry and I know I want to work in healthcare. Great video!
Your Career Choice is always interesting.
As an E.E., I was interested in the science of the eye, and effective myopia prevention.
Go from 20/50, to 20/20, by accepting that all eyes are dynamic Control Systems.
Yea that happened to me too. The stress from parents is intense
Lol omg doctor Justin was my classmate!!! Very smart guy
Agreed 💯
There are still only 23 schools, not more.
Thanks for the info khang!
115 or 150? 48:05
Gretchen Go???
Great! After 4 miserable years of post bachelors degree, you will be
under compensated. Obama Care has ruined optometry.. pays nothing. Too
many optometry schools turning out too many optometrists. Your worst
enemies are other optometrists that see young ODs as cheap labor. I
graduated in 1981. It was okay back then because the O.D. profited from
selling glasses and contacts. Now, Luxotica owns everything,profits from
eyeglass sales and you are an underpaid refractionist. You have been
warned. By the way, here is your tuition repayment coupon book... start
paying on student loans, after 4 years in grad school with no income,
while your undergraduate roommate bought a house and contributed to IRA
and had nice vacation.
Including Zennioptical lenses for $10. Can Optometry continue?
Dang I kinda see why, is really the only profit is from glasses sales? unless eye exams
Dentists can and optometrists can open their own practices. If you are just wanting to be an employee. you are limited. If you want to be a boss and take risks, then optomerey is very much worth it.
The scope of practice is changing also.
@@bun4638 Not any more. Save the tuition money and use it as a down-payment on a multi unit rental property.
Dont study optometry if you are from Pakistan. There is no respect, optometrists are limited to refraction, they cannot prescribe anything, cant call themselves doctors and there is a mediocre increase in the pay scale after doing mphil and PhD.
For international students who might think what I am saying is wrong:
Freshly graduated optometrists earn 240 dollars AT MAX in a month. And by doing multiple jobs they can earn up to 500 bucks. Even after doing PhD you wont earn much more than this when doing clinical work.
Yeah we can earn better in private practice but since we cannot call us doctors and the public has no knowledge regarding vision sciences, therefore are seen only as a refractionist. Even the instruments like slit lamp are not taught/given to us for learning/diagnosing purposes.
By: A random optometrist in Pakistan
Aww Thankss man! I found your comment very helpful. I took admission in optometry last week and my classes were going to start in November but I’ve been thinking about to change my program from Bs optometry to “Medical imagine technology /radiology. Is it a better alternate? I’ve planned to practice as a radiographer in uk after bachelors.
This video gives a general idea of the profession in the United States so its quite different from Pakistan. There are multiple 2ish-yr programs that are designed for foreign optometrists who want to practice in the states if you are interested.
@Seh Rish
Optometry is a better career choice than Medical Imaging Technology, in my opinion
@@rektscope8860 Can you please give details regarding that or make a video?