View from the high street: Power of networking

This month brings an influx of newly-qualified optometrists, embarking on their careers after success in their July OSCEs. I am sure they will be eager to get their list numbers and begin the
next stage.

I remember the mix of emotions when I first qualified. I felt proud to have finally become part of the qualified profession and excited to begin a career and stand on my own two feet. But there was also a sense of fear and nervousness about having nobody to turn to with any queries and having to make my own decisions with no input from my supervisor. Indeed, I quickly moved to practices where I was working as the sole optometrist on some days, so the decision and workload was all mine. This could be quite daunting at times and I still find optometrists say to me now that they prefer to work in larger practices so that they always have a fellow professional to discuss challenging cases with or to sense check that they have made the correct decision for a particular patient.