TWO fourth-year UNSW optometry students are seeing rural NSW for the first time.
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Andrew Le and Kevin Tran, both 21 year-olds from Sydney, are working at Wingham Eyecare as part of the university’s voluntary two-week rural Australia preceptorship program.
This is the fifth year that Wingham Eyecare optometrist Dennis Smith has acted as a supervising optometrist for the program and hosted students.
The two students chose Wingham specifically. “They hand us a list of places we can go, and then we just pick. I talked to people that went here last year and they said it was really good and you get to go into surgery,” Kevin said.
Being present at surgery is not something that is required during the preceptorship, but Dennis likes the students to experience what happens when a patient is referred to an opthamologist.
The two went into surgery with Dr Geoff Whitehouse in Forster Eye and came away impressed.
“He makes it look really easy,” Andrew said, of watching Dr Whitehouse doing cataract surgeries.
“Yeah, he’s so chilled,” agreed Kevin. “Dr Whitehouse is really nice.”
It wasn’t a totally chilled experience for one, though. “I nearly fainted!” said an embarrassed Andrew, adding “the surgery didn’t look that bad – I’m blaming it on not having breakfast!”
The pair have not had a lot of time for sightseeing and admittedly the weather has not been conducive to tourist activities - the first polar vortex hit on the day they arrived in the Valley.
They did, however, take a trip up to Ellenborough Falls, and went fishing at Croki.
“But we had no luck,” Kevin said. “It was kind of windy that day. We bought cooked prawns for bait but because there were no bites we just ate them.”
Wingham has been an eye-opener for the two young men, who are used to the fast pace of life and constant traffic of Sydney.
“it’s quiet,” Kevin said of Wingham. But the good thing is there’s no traffic.”
“It’s more relaxed than Sydney,” agreed Andrew.
“Yeah, in terms of seeing patients, it’s pretty laid back. You get more time to see patients,” Kevin said.
They also commented on how friendly the people of Wingham are, and how “everyone seems to know each other!”
Andrew and Kevin head home to Sydney on Saturday, July 25. Next year they will complete a compulsory four-week preceptorship, but this time they are hoping to be placed overseas.