Pre-registration matters

View PDF 

Even though this visit is termed a stage 2 'assessment', the format is more exam-like than the stage 1 visits, and has a pass or fail result for the three parts.

The three elements that make up the visit are a routine eye examination, a contact lens check and fitting and then 1.5-2 hours of looking through patient records (PR) to evidence all the remaining 8 over-arching competencies not covered in the Stage 1 visits.

Let us now consider each part in turn.

• 1 Eye examination on a 'mystery' patient. 45 minutes is allowed for this and the patient will be a presbyope who has allegedly lost their spectacles. The assessor will check the spectacle Rx and ophthalmoscopy beforehand so they know what results should be seen and found. To get to this stage a student must have tested over 350 people so they will have developed a familiar routine in the eye examination. However many pre-reg.s decide to do a more comprehensive 'exam-type' routine that is unfamiliar to them and usually end up wasting time performing irrelevant and illogical tests. This part of the assessment should be the easiest as it's doing something familiar in your own testing room with plenty of time to do it in. The assessor should ask if time checks are required. This is a good idea but also have a clock or watch yourself to check and know at what stage you should be at in the routine at each time check so you know whether to speed up or not.