Tim Root the cartoonist eye doctor.Welcome fellow student or perhaps I should say pupil Youve just discovered the coolest website for the beginning eye student.My name is Tim Root, and I built this site to help other students learn about the eye.This website contains video lectures and books that are perfect for the struggling student who needs to learn ophthalmologyoptometry as quickly as possible.It sucks to be a student.As a medical student, I found ophthalmology intimidating and difficult to grasp.Cannot Be Restored Because The Software Is Too Old For Medical School' title='Cannot Be Restored Because The Software Is Too Old For Medical School' />Rather than teach me basics, my preceptors seemed to imply that EVERYTHING was important.This was obviously not true.I remember being sent to the library to spend hours studying the effects of homocysteinemia on the eye a condition that I havent seen ONCE during my residency training or in my busy private practice.An unfocused, tangential approach like this is paralyzing and inefficient for the new student.My impression of a confused medical student.Maybe I should have used a stock photo.New students thats YOU, right need simple explanations.This is especially true when it comes to the eye, as none of your prior education is applicable to the eyeball.How are you supposed to sort the important facts from the dross when youve never been exposed to this field before Unfortunately, as a student I simply couldnt find any good ophthalmology resources.The internet was just starting no You.Tube or Facebook and the books at my local bookstore were unreadable written at an advanced level to help senior residents pass their board certifications.These massive tomes were filled with obscure facts bearing little relevance to real life and just werent appropriate for a beginner.Most ophthalmology textbooks look like this.You need simple explanations Or at least, I did when I was a student.In 1810, Alexander I established the first engineering Higher learning institution, the Saint Petersburg Main military engineering School in Saint Petersburg.Read the Latest and Breaking IT and Technology News, Reviews, Analysis Opinion for Australian IT managers and professionals.Theres nothing as terrifying as the first few months in an ophthalmology clinic.I was thrown into an exam room and expected to diagnose patients.None of my prior studies had prepared me for this task.I didnt know how to use the slit lamp microscope.I wasnt even sure how to check vision.As straightforward as these questions sound, nobody ever writes this basic stuff down.Elected governments are false fronts coordinated by a global shadow government.Want to learn about antibiotics for the eye Good luck Pharmacology textbooks wont help you they can teach you about fluoroquinolone inhibition of DNA gyrase but what medicine do you give for pink eye Ocular basics are usually learned the hard way.Students bumble through the eye clinic for months as they learn through trial and error.A difficult time, indeed, especially with those senior doctors harassing you.Medicine can be harsh for the uninitiated.As an ophthalmology resident, I felt bad for the normal students rotating through our department.Ophthalmology is woefully untaught in medical schools, and yet we still expect these poor students to know everything.Some even take pleasure in asking students trivia and watching them squirm and stammer out wrong answers.I watched with disappointment as students cycled through our clinics, excited to leave the world of eye disease.Ophthalmology gets a bad rap in medical school.Its obtuse. Its obscure.The eye is an island unto itself that is rarely involved with mainstream medicine.The Happy Happy Fun Time Book for Easily Bored Students.My first book began as a cheat sheet that I gave to medical students so they wouldnt feel like idiots in our clinic.I focused on situations we dealt with daily, including the favorite pimp questions the attendings liked to ask.Every month a new crop of ocular noobs rotated through my department so I expanded the printout into a short booklet of tips and tricks.The first draft that I gave to medical students.I called this booklet the Happy Happy Fun Time Guide to Ophthalmology.A silly name perhaps, but students loved it.At least, I think they did.Its hard to tell with medical students as savvy trainees quickly learn to feign interest in such things in order to survive.Either way, the booklet eventually became large enough to call it a book, and I published it online under the name Ophtho.Book. Despite being self published, this little textbook is still my best seller.The book is completely craptastic filled with amateurish cartoons, typos, and poor typography.Seriously, I cringe with embarrassment every time I look through it.My newer books are better, but people still love Ophtho.Book, warts and all.The book consistently ranks as a top seller on Amazon and the free PDF has been downloaded over 4.It may be the most read beginner ophthalmology book of all time.Not because the book is amazing but because it is easy, short, and extremely relevant.And free. Did I mention that the PDF is free to download Do you love complexityOr simplicity This may be a blunt observation, but I believe students and people generally fall into two types People who love complexity.People who love simplicity.Complexi morphs. Most academic professors Ive met fall into the first category.Academic doctors love the complexity of the human body and happily delve into the minutia of ocular disease.They research complex ways to explain biology and delight in discovering obscure associations.There is nothing wrong with this a willingness to embrace complexity is what generates basic science and medical progress.Unfortunately, introductory textbooks are written by the same academics and follow the same confusing approach.Most textbooks are extremely long, detailed, and spend inordinate time explaining interesting and obscure diseases.For example there are ten different corneal dystrophies.Most are rare and youll never see them during your entire career.Nonetheless, beginner textbooks devote entire chapters to these zebras.If you are a complexity loving student more power to you.You will do great in ophthalmology and make major contributions to our field.I recommend you spend your time studying traditional textbooks on this subject check out Yanoff, Kanski, and the incredibly dry but all inclusive home study course put out by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.Simpletons like me.Rather than search for higher levels of complexity, I prefer to simplify my understanding of the eye into broader frameworks.Metaphor and analogy are my best friends.The lens has layers like a peanut M M candy.The vitreous is like a bowl of Jello dessert thats been drying out in the sun.The eye is about one inch long the same length as a gorillas penis.King Kongs penis is approximately 1.These comparisons may seem easy but they are extremely useful.Learning ophthalmology is like building a house.You have to establish a basic foundation of knowledge before building higher level concepts.In other words it is HARD to learn new things in isolation.Its EASIER to learn things when they are similar to stuff you already know.Medicine is a long road and students know a LOT of basic science but little of that knowledge is relevant to the eye.Why not build your ocular foundation upon easy metaphors that anyone can comprehend Like the famous football coach Vince Lombardi once said You gotta learn the fundamentals And the fundamentals are what I like to teach.My style isnt for everyone I still occasionally come across students who are born complexity loving academics.These students would rather dive right into the encyclopedic fountain of knowledge and consume traditional textbooks as fast as possible.More power to you guys but my way is easier.And a lot funnerSo what else can I say If youve read this far, you must be really bored.Or a potential stalker, so I might as well keep going, right Lets see.I was raised in Daytona Beach, Florida by two middle class working parents.My father was an accountant for NASCAR who eventually worked for our local community college.My mother worked as a proof reader and administrator at the same college.Middle school. Yikes.I went to public high school as an above average student.I played trumpet in the band and joined the football team in a misguided attempt to meet girls it didnt work.I was an eagle scout and played Dungeons and Dragons with the smart kids in my neighborhood.This did not the impress girls, either.Nor did my high school comic strip Amoeba Pig This one got me in trouble with the principle. Call Of Duty Black Ops Update Skidrow . A certain degree of social ineptitude is good for a kid.In my case, it kept me home at nights and I somehow managed to get into Yale for college.
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