Hi! My name is Douglas Reed. I am a second year student at the Southern College of Optometry. In two more years I'll be a practicing optometrist. An optometrist is a doctor who provides primary care for the eye. Optometrists diagnose, treat, and manage diseases and abnormalities of the eye, vision, and related systemic conditions. What does that mean? That means I'll be a doctor who takes care of peoples' eyes and their vision. I'll take care of problems with sight (prescribe glasses to makes things clear), problems and diseases of the eye (prescribe medication to clear up that pink eye, help out that person with the eye that turns out, help people who can barely see, keep a person from going blind from diseases, etc.), and watch out for other diseases that can be observed from the eye (diabetes, high blood pressure, tumors, and a ton more). I have learned a lot and still have a lot more to learn. Here is a list of all the classes I have already taken at SCO, am taking now, and still have to take over the next two years. Yes, that's an awful lot to know! But if I want to provide my future patients with the best care they can get, I have to learn all that and more.
I am living in Memphis, Tennessee right now (that's where SCO is). My home and my family is in Charleston, SC. I graduated from Furman University in Greenville, SC. I'm not sure where I will practice once I graduate. All I know right now is that I still have a long way to go.
