Blog Week 3

On Friday, I went to San Jose Clinic for the third week and was assigned to volunteer in the optometry wing of the clinic.  I stayed in for approximately two hours, time in which I helped the optometry student with one patient.  Last time I was in this part of the clinic, I was only called to translate background information from the patient because the students knew the directions in Spanish. This time, I stayed in during the entire eye exam and I had never imagined how intrinsic and complicated the eye and the machines used to examine them were.  The student I was with, shared a great amount of information with me so I got exposed to a lot of terminology and structures within the eye that I did not know.  The patient had just been diagnosed with diabetes and as a result, he was having some vision problems.  I feel I was very helpful in providing the patient with the information that the doctor and the student wanted to get across.  This optometry student knew very little Spanish and I could tell in several instances that he was not understanding what she was trying to say.  With a disease as serious as diabetes, there must be a complete understanding of what the body is going through and what the best course of action should be in order to get better and avoid the disease to worsen.