During the spring semester of my third year, I was assigned a rotation with Dr. Pallante in the Vision Therapy clinic. I was a little hesitant and nervous going into this day. I was unfamiliar with clinical vision therapy, even though I had learned about it in Binocular Accommodative Anomalies class earlier in the year.

Dr. Elizabeth Pallante

However, the nerves quickly went away when I started the day with Dr. Pallante. She is a phenomenal preceptor who makes vision therapy fun, easy to learn, and is very open to answering any and all questions.

I found that an open and positive preceptor-student dynamic like this encourages learning, growth, and holds less shame or fear of us students “messing up” or feeling like “I don’t know anything.” Working alongside Dr. Pallante proved that as students, clinic is supposed to be a time to get those patient encounters, learn from mistakes under an attending doctor and ask questions, lots of questions.

It is okay to mess up and learn from mistakes, as we aren’t supposed to be perfect right from the start. Preceptors, like Dr. Pallante, definitely understand this and try their best to be a strong support for learning. Dr. Pallante made a pretty challenging specialty clinic make more sense and allowed me to evolve and enjoy it more. Seeing the passion she has for her patients every day, and the positive, fun attitude she brings to clinic is inspiring. I hope to be half the clinician she is!

I enjoyed getting the opportunity to work with the same patients each week and see their progress over time. I also had the privilege of seeing one of the patients graduate from vision therapy at the end of the semester! It was such a happy and rewarding moment to witness. As I was doing the progress evaluation, I got to see how the results dramatically improved from pre-VT. It goes to show how impactful eye doctors can be with time, diligence, and patience. Vision therapy sessions can often last for months, but when the end result is a patient whose symptoms have improved and leaves with a better quality of life, it is all worth it.