Week 9: Approaching the Finish Line

Happy May! This week marks the second-to-last of both the third trimester and my senior project — it’s hard to believe how quickly the time has flown by. As the finish line comes into view, this week was about balancing daily responsibilities with polishing my business proposal.

My tasks at the clinic remained steady: opening new frames and soft lenses, packaging them, and making follow-up calls. I also continued pre-testing patients and spent several hours organizing a new shipment of contact lens trials into our inventory system. I realized I haven’t shown you how the storage drawers are set up; each one is categorized by manufacturer and whether the lenses are for astigmatism or standard vision. I’ve included a photo below so you can get a glimpse. Each drawer contains rows and columns of lenses arranged by power, cylinder, sphere, and axis. It usually takes me at least two hours to go through all 40 drawers and restock them with the latest order. (If you look super closely in the image, one of the trial lenses is from the wrong brand. Can you spot it?)

On the consulting side, I made some headway this week. I fleshed out my proposed solutions in greater detail and scheduled a meeting with the manager to discuss feasibility. Our conversation turned into a valuable exchange. She shared insights from past strategies that aligned with some of my ideas, and we explored how to build on those experiences. Her feedback was incredibly helpful in shaping a more practical, well-informed proposal. I spent the rest of the week refining the written portion and translating our conversation into a more actionable plan.

One last thing — a quick confession. Last week, I mentioned I’d be gathering numbers on the clinic’s spending across software systems, equipment maintenance, utility costs, and more. Unfortunately, I’ll have to push that task to next week. The doctor I need to speak with hasn’t been in on the days I’ve been scheduled, so I’ll be adjusting my hours to catch them. I’m looking forward to reviewing those outstanding financial figures next week so I can round out the proposal with a more complete picture of the clinic’s resource allocation. See you all next week!

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