The Illinois College of Optometry Student Blog

First off, what is CPS? It stands for Chicago Public Schools, and for ICO students, it is one of our third year specialty sites. Our CPS rotation is at a school on Princeton Ave, a few blocks south of the White Sox stadium. Each week, we can have walk-in patients, or we have a bus that brings a group of kids from different schools in the area. CPS sees patients up until the age of 18. CPS is definitely different from regular clinic at the Illinois Eye Institute. At the IEI, w

Life as a third year isn’t so bad right now. We had our first pediatrics lab with Dr. Allison, and since the majority of the class is made up of females, there was a huge estrogen-driven chorus of  “aww”  every few minutes. We watched videos of how to perform eye exams for infants, toddlers and pre-school children. Each lab, ICO faculty members volunteer to bring their young children to be our practice patients. You’d imagine that these kids would feel shy, or be intimidated