externship Program
An Experience As Big As West Texas!
Clinical experience
Though West Texas Eyecare is a general family eye care practice, you will be exposed to so much more because of our geographic isolation from specialty services. Each and every day we see a broad spectrum of patients at both locations for routine eye care, medical eye care, and traditional / hybrid / and specialty contact lenses. Both offices are generally quite busy with typical doctor loads of 20-25+ patients per day depending on the time of year. It is not uncommon to have patients driving an 1-2 hours or more for their eye care. At any given time, 60-80% of our schedule is patients that live out of town. Needless to say there will be plenty of opportunities for direct patient care. You will see a broad cross section of the population and many diverse cases. Many of our patients speak only Spanish so it is a good opportunity to practice, though most of our staff is bilingual and happily assist in translating during all phases of patient care. There are no weekend or on-call hours, though an occasional weekend red eye may pop up. As your preceptors we will be there to happily assist, guide, discuss, advise, and sign off, on the patients you see but want to be as hands off as possible. Your externship is your opportunity to grow.
Our offices
Our principal office is in Fort Stockton Texas, and our 2nd location is in the town of Pecos about 60 miles northwest. Both stay very busy Monday through Thursday with only the Fort Stockton location open Friday. We have a total of 9 exam lanes at our locations with some of the most advanced diagnostic testing equipment available. You will use instruments such as the Optos Daytona, Zeiss OCTA 6000's, Zeiss HFA3's, B-Scan, Zeiss iProfilers and traditional autorefractors, Pentacam and traditional topographers, the Visionary Optics topographical scanner for fitting scleral lenses, digital color testing, digital pupil testing, and Neurolens objective prism testing. We also have an in-house finishing lab with a state of the art MEI EZ-FIT No Block edger you will learn to operate to fabricate spectacle lenses. Our helpful and friendly staff are a great asset as well and we feel confident you will enjoy working with them.
As an added benefit to you and our patients, each month we have retina specialist visiting both offices to hold specialty clinic hours. We will coordinate LASIK and cataract surgery observation days to shadow in our referral centers.
Accommodations
Our externs have the option to stay in a beautifully remodeled, furnished 2/1/1, 1000 sq. foot home. complete with washer, dryer, gas grill and appliances, and a small fenced backyard in a quiet neighborhood just a couple minutes from the office in Fort Stockton. We also provide a vehicle for travel between the offices if you like.
West Texas life
West Texas is vast and beautiful, and we hope you will enjoy it to the fullest. Summer evenings are best enjoyed outside in Fort Stockton and we have some excellent restaurants, parks, a beer garden, as well as live music a few nights a week during the warmer months. Some of our biggest local events are the Big Bend Open Road Race in the spring, as well as the Comanche Springs Rodeo. Big Bend National Park is about an hour and a half away with stunning views and great hiking. Take a trip down to Alpine or Marfa to explore the art work, music, grab a drink or a bite to eat at some world class bars and restaurants. Explore beautiful rustic hotels and make your way up to the McDonald observatory in Ft. Davis for a tour or a Star Party. With its rich history, beautiful views, and friendly people, there truly is no place like west Texas.