{"id":3236,"date":"2022-02-14T22:41:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T20:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/?p=3236"},"modified":"2022-02-14T22:41:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T20:41:42","slug":"from-wanting-to-become-a-surgeon-to-being-a-devoted-optometrist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/articles\/from-wanting-to-become-a-surgeon-to-being-a-devoted-optometrist\/","title":{"rendered":"From wanting to become a surgeon to being a devoted optometrist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I got first acceptance and fell out on second acceptance. I was devastated because I had no plan B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July of my matric year, we visited Rand Afrikaans University’s to look at different study directions. One of them was optometry. My heart was not in the visit, as I saw it more as an opportunity to skip school for a day. The head of optometry heard my predicament and accepted me immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I chose to stay in Optometry even after the University of Pretoria accepted me for medical studies. I never regret my choice and fully enjoy my profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started my now 28-year-old practise in Hartbeespoort when I was only 24 years old. I always knew that I wanted to work for myself and was grateful when the Lord presented me with the opportunity in a unique way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started as a student working for Prof Jannie Ferreira. He fuelled my interest in paediatrics and binocular vision. Working with children with reading and learning problems is a great challenge and finding solutions is important for me. I did various courses in reading problems and dyslexia. I work in the behavioural optometry field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Comfortable vision is just as important in todays near-point orientated society as good vision. The optimal functioning of the 2 eyes together is of utmost importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also true for all people doing computer work all day long-thus all younger and older people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All aspects of vision and lenses-whether children or older people are important and interesting to solve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also do hard contact lens and specialised soft contact lens fittings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My clinical strengths are thus solving problems related to all kinds of visual impairments. Reading and learning problems are the most common I believe in taking my time when testing and doing all tests necessarily to give optimal vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also enjoyed working at the university and educating students in optometry. I worked at UJ as a demi for 10 years and was an external examiner for 4th<\/sup> year optometry students at Bloemfontein optometry department for 6 years. I also did various talks for Carl Zeiss as further continuous education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My most memorable patient was an elderly lady of 88 years who was brought in by her daughter. Her daughter said that I should speak loudly as the lady had a hearing problem. This I did in the consulting room, with her daughter waiting outside. The lady asked me why I was shouting?<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I relayed what her daughter said upon which she casually replied that she only pretends not to hear- as her daughter was too annoying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I never broke the old lady\u2019s casual confession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Optometry has a lot of business principals to be applied and knowledge of business is as important as knowing my profession. I enjoy the business side and like the fact that optometry has various aspects to be fulfilled. I enjoy challenges and believe to be positive and work towards solutions in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that we also work with people full-time demands knowledge of people and a lot of patience. I love people and love working with them. If I did not, I think my life would have been very dull. I definitely need all my staff\u2019s support to be successful and are very grateful that God has placed such wonderful people in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that all people are important and need to be treated with respect. And faith in Jesus Christ is the All-important aspect of my life. Fil 4:4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can do anything through the power of Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always wanted to become a surgeon and applied at the University of Pretoria. I truly believed that this is what I wanted to do. by Madeleine Nilson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-startups"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355.jpg",576,432,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355.jpg",576,432,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-461x1024.jpg",461,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355.jpg",576,432,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355.jpg",576,432,false],"magazine-7-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-576x1020.jpg",576,1020,true],"magazine-7-slider-center":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-576x897.jpg",576,897,true],"magazine-7-featured":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355.jpg",576,432,false],"magazine-7-medium":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-e1644871283355-576x380.jpg",576,380,true],"magazine-7-medium-square":["https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG-20220125-WA0065-576x450.jpg",576,450,true]},"author_info":{"info":["TheLife Team"]},"category_info":"Articles & Advertisers<\/a> Start Ups<\/a>","tag_info":"Start Ups","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3238,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions\/3238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelife.digital\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}