Optometry student MacKayla Wolfe has a natural affinity for children. She loves entertaining her many nieces and nephews during family gatherings and has recently started working more with kids through her third- and fourth-year clinical experiences at the Illinois College of Optometry.
Upon expressing interest, her professors, Dr. Yi Pang and Dr. Jennifer Harthan, introduced her to Generation Sight, CooperVision’s initiative which bridges myopia management access disparities among under-resourced children in the U.S. Seizing the opportunity and guided by their mentorship, MacKayla became one of the first optometry students to provide patient care within the program. She successfully fit a nine-year-old boy with MiSight®
CooperVision recently caught up with MacKayla to hear her reflections about her patient encounter, her experience with Generation Sight, and how the program is shaping her readiness to work with children as she approaches graduation.
How did insertion and removal training go?
I’ve done insertion and removal trainings before, but this was my first nine-year-old and the youngest I’ve worked with. He was great! He was very eager to learn, and his mom was there to cheer him on. He was very motivated and eager to learn because he was ready to not wear glasses.
He said he loved playing sports and going to trampoline parks. In fact, he said he had a birthday party at Sky Zone the following weekend and that he needed to figure out how to get his contacts in so that he didn’t have to wear his glasses to the party. I loved the motivation!
What obstacles did you help him overcome?
This was his first time trying contact lenses, so at first he had a hard time getting his finger close to his eye. He would always blink. Getting him to hold his eyelid nice and wide was the most difficult for him, I think. But once he mastered keeping a strong hold on his eyelid, he got it right away.
Any tips for training young patients?
Instill confidence in the kids. When they get nervous, they can get flustered, which can slow their learning curve. I also wear contact lenses, so I’ve found that demonstrating the process on myself helps to boost their confidence.
Visuals can also help with training young patients. In this case, I showed him a picture demonstrating how to identify if a contact lens was inside out, which gave him a clear example of what to look for.
What was your favorite part of being involved with Generation Sight?
I’ve always loved working with kids. Working with kids might seem intimidating, especially to optometry students, so it’s important to be confident. I’m thankful for my experience with Generation Sight because it not only boosted my confidence, but also reaffirmed that kids, interns, and ODs can all do hard things!
* Indications for use: MiSight® 1 day (omafilcon A) soft (hydrophilic) contact lenses for daily wear are indicated for the correction of myopic ametropia and for slowing the progression of myopia in children with non-diseased eyes, who at the initiation of treatment are 8-12 years of age and have a refraction of -0.75 to -4.00 diopters (spherical equivalent) with ≤ 0.75 diopters of astigmatism. The lens is to be discarded after each removal.
† Compared to a single vision 1 day lens over a 3-year period.
Referencecs:
1 Chamberlain P, et al. A 3-year randomized clinical trial of MiSight® lenses for myopia control. Optom Vis Sci. 2019; 96(8):556-567.
