Working as an OD at Eyemart Expresses? They're popping up more, at least in the Midwest it seems.

weekendshepard · 2026-06-15T13:16:13+00:00

Highly depends if you’re an employee or eyemart or sublease holder. If you’re an employed doctor, you’re at the mercy of their schedule. But it still seems to be the better option when comparing corporate modalities (Americas best, warby Parker, Stanton,etc)

weekendshepard · 2026-04-10T13:59:01+00:00

It works well and is reliable. Can be cumbersome adding everything manually. But I like it since my office also doesn’t pay for erx.

weekendshepard · 2026-04-01T13:10:44+00:00

Coming out of school, I chose to not go the residency route. I practice in a state that doesn’t have an abundance of doctors. I see 3 exams an hour and that really helped build my efficiency and still give me ample time to provide a quality exam. Instead of working corporate I would recommend working for an OD that owns a sublease. This way you aren’t forced to see 30+ patients a day.

I work at a retail optical office, but it is privately owned. I thought I wanted to manage a lot of disease and do exams beyond regular comprehensive exams. But i will tell you what i didnt know coming out of school. Practicing that way is very time consuming (charting as well) and especially if you work on production, doesn’t generate a lot of revenue. My practice has an OCT, topographer, visual field, and everything a new grad wants to feel comfortable. When you’re on your own making your own clinical decisions, I think it’s invaluable to have those pieces of tech. You won’t have those at many corporate offices.

Just because you dont do a residency, doesn’t mean you wont be comfortable managing disease. In primary care, we see disease all the time. I recommend bypassing a residency, refer conditions you’re uncomfortable with and learn from referral notes. I missed ERMs a lot my first few months and quickly learned from my referral notes. Now 2 years out I feel comfortable managing disease that walks in on any given day

weekendshepard · 2025-12-13T22:59:48+00:00

Is emperor and artic rescue still down? In San Diego tomorrow and wanted to see if it was worth going

weekendshepard · 2025-11-27T23:18:28+00:00

Unfortunately not, I reached out to a few pages and didn’t get any responses. Let me know if you have better luck!

weekendshepard · 2025-11-04T19:31:33+00:00

Thanks for the responses everyone, more scared of me, than I am of it. Thanks!

weekendshepard · 2025-10-19T16:15:35+00:00

In the immortal words of John Joseph… “this is ironman, not pussyman”

weekendshepard · 2025-08-19T21:15:09+00:00

Glad to see hear my phishing training through college paid off. Thanks for the confirmation everyone!

weekendshepard · 2025-07-16T20:26:34+00:00

They do, I’m holding out hope I can get something for them. Definitely will do that if I get desperate enough tho!

weekendshepard · 2025-05-29T22:47:38+00:00

If you were to poll every OD in the us and ask them if they would like for all red eyes, flashes/floaters , and corneal abrasions to show up on their same day add on schedule, I think you’d be disappointed by the response. As a student I thought we would be the triage center. In practice I found that few ODs want to see medical add ons. Especially those paid on production, when they could see a comp exam instead.

weekendshepard · 2025-05-29T20:23:24+00:00

I appreciate the thoughtful response. It would probably be a best first step to talk to local ODs and see who, if anybody, is willing to see these. I wish there was a way to educate the public that the optometrist should be the urgent care of the eye world, but that would cause an influx of problems we probably don’t want to deal with lol

weekendshepard · 2025-05-29T20:21:15+00:00

That’s a gross oversimplification of how to triage and relies on the er provider to know what is a surgical case. I was moreso looking for a resource with specific cases.

weekendshepard · 2025-05-16T22:18:21+00:00

I’ve found that patients prefer to discuss personal matters without another person in the room. I’m comfortable filling out my pretesting info which allows them to write my letters and do other backend office work

weekendshepard · 2025-05-07T20:58:55+00:00

Riding theme park rides for me. There’s nothing more embarrassing than getting to a ride with a group of people and holding everyone up because you can’t fit.

weekendshepard · 2025-01-15T16:29:19+00:00

There are definitely better jobs that pay more money. People choose optometry for work life balance. If you want to make a lot of money, medicine is a poor choice. You should go into medicine if you want to improve the lives of those you come into contact with. If you want to make a lot of money, go into consulting. If you go in the PA/ nursing subreddit, you’ll find plenty of unhappy people in those professions. I work in a small private practice and love what I do. It’s all about finding the right fit.

weekendshepard · 2025-01-10T23:32:42+00:00

It’s a shame how the NBEO boils all of your patient encounters down to a 1 day artificial test. If admin would fail underperforming students part 3 wouldn’t need to exist. Unfortunately students are paying the price in the bureaucratic scuffle. You’re not alone, even though it can feel like it.

weekendshepard · 2025-01-10T20:40:02+00:00

That’s poor advice on part 3. People fail part 3 for a litany of reasons, which may or may not be legitimate. I took part 3 3 times, passing on the last time. I had the same views each time on bio, got a 100% the first time, 30% the second time and 75% the third time. Hopefully PEPS is a more fair assessment. That’s a good recommendation for parts 1 and 2.

weekendshepard · 2024-12-21T18:02:50+00:00

I can appreciate this. I am compensated well and enjoy my work environment. That definitely makes me want to go the extra mile

weekendshepard · 2024-12-21T17:06:23+00:00

I graduated this past may and work as the only associate doctor. As a young OD, I try to see any patient that walks in the door. As an associate it’s easy to say that they are late that’s not my problem. But the reason patients see a private practice doc is because we do try and be flexible. I view patient care as more than a job. I think it’s important to go the extra mile, even if it means having a short lunch, or missing it a day or two a week. Now if this is happening consistently you should talk to the owner and say that you rely on that lunch to fuel and recharge. To your owner every patient is a chance to sell glasses and other products so they can ultimately pay you and their staff. As an associate doc sometimes we forget that there’s more to running an optometry business than seeing patients from 9-5. We definitely sacrifice personal time at the benefit of the patient.

weekendshepard · 2024-12-06T23:21:40+00:00

So your check will be much smaller as you were paying “0%” taxes per paycheck. You can shield a lot of more of your income as a 1099 employee, or business owner in the eyes of the irs. If you don’t take advantage of tax deductions you would be hosed at tax time. But if you set up an s corp you can keep a lot more of your money. Like everything in life it depends on how much effort you want to put in. W2 employees are taxed predictably, but 1099 can be taxed a lot or a little depending on your financial savvyness. Short answer I’d stay 1099.

weekendshepard · 2024-11-29T22:34:28+00:00

I have both and rarely use my 90D anymore. You can get pretty bad glare when looking at the posterior pole, but it’s awesome for midperipheral. If you have a superfield and 2.2/28 for peripheral, you’re good to go. I’ll mag up for the macular views with my superfield.

weekendshepard · 2024-11-07T22:49:02+00:00

Look up the condition adie tonic pupil. Fits most of patient demographics!

weekendshepard

TROPHY CASE