Residency News...

Ok so today Emilee and I found where we will be living next year...get ready...wait for it...are you sitting down?...Birmingham, Alabama (cue banjo music). Any time Emilee and I mention the residency to friends and family they always have a lot of questions about it. I'll try to answer some of the common ones we get:

1. Where is it? Birmingham, Alabama, but more specifically it's at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. UAB has an optometry school and the residency is affiliated through that school. I will be spending most of my time there as well as other practices throughout Birmingham.

2. What type of residency is it? It is an accredited "Cornea and Contact Lens" residency. I will spend the majority of my time seeing contact lens patients and those with corneal disorders or infections.

3. How long is it? One year.

4. Is the residency required? Nope.

5. Then why in the world would you do it? To get specialized training in the area of contact lenses (more on this later)

6. Gross. How can you stand to go school for another year? I'm not really going to an additional year of school. As a resident, I will have already graduated from optometry school and earned my degree as doctor. This is my chance to specialize in a specific area which will open up more opportunities later in my career.

7. How much is it going to cost to you? Nothing, in fact I'll be a paid resident. However I'll be paid 1/2-1/3 of what I would have normally made if I started working with a practice after graduation. Completing the residency will pay for itself in the long run though.

8. Prescribing contact lenses sounds easy, why do you need to do a residency? The majority of contact lens patients are relatively easy fits. There is a small percentage of patients who require specialty hard contact lenses for certain corneal diseases. These patients have no choice but to wear hard contact lenses and require a doctor who is trained in fitting them in these specialty lenses.

9. Has the baby been born yet? No, but he keeps scissor kicking Emilee in the ribs.

Anyway, We're excited to move to Birmingham this summer with our little family. Where we'll end up after the residency is anyone's guess.