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Orthoptics 2015

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Original post by yaknow 66
26th November and sent it off on like 29th October
Thank you :smile:


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is this interview for orthoptics? i thought they didnt give interviews?
Original post by cupcakes87
is this interview for orthoptics? i thought they didnt give interviews?


Yep apparently they do now! But it sounds like more of an open day :smile:


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Original post by yaknow 66
Yep apparently they do now! But it sounds like more of an open day :smile:


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aah okay! i thought they had open days before too?

i have yet to send off my application. my school says i need to have other choices on my ucas form apart from sheffield and liverpool.

i just hope its not getting too late :s-smilie:
Original post by cupcakes87
aah okay! i thought they had open days before too?

i have yet to send off my application. my school says i need to have other choices on my ucas form apart from sheffield and liverpool.

i just hope its not getting too late :s-smilie:


I sent away my application 4th November and havent heard anything back from them so dont worry it should be fine.
Reply 44
Original post by cupcakes87
aah okay! i thought they had open days before too?

i have yet to send off my application. my school says i need to have other choices on my ucas form apart from sheffield and liverpool.

i just hope its not getting too late :s-smilie:


What about Glasgow? And I haven't sent mine off either
Original post by hannahc745
I sent away my application 4th November and havent heard anything back from them so dont worry it should be fine.



aah okay! i plan on getting it done soon now :redface: a bit stressed still though
Original post by letsa
What about Glasgow? And I haven't sent mine off either


i would have out down Glasgow too but the distance is just too far :redface:
Original post by cupcakes87
aah okay! i plan on getting it done soon now :redface: a bit stressed still though


i would have out down Glasgow too but the distance is just too far :redface:


I applied for sheffield and glasgow but haven't heard anything back from them yet
Original post by hannahc745
I applied for sheffield and glasgow but haven't heard anything back from them yet


did you put any back ups?
Original post by cupcakes87
did you put any back ups?


Yea I applied for Ophthalmic dispensing course which you can then go on to do Orthoptics. Do you have any back ups?
Original post by hannahc745
Yea I applied for Ophthalmic dispensing course which you can then go on to do Orthoptics. Do you have any back ups?



ohpthalmic dispensing! :five:

glad im not the only one!

i guess i really need to crack on with my application!
Original post by cupcakes87
ohpthalmic dispensing! :five:

glad im not the only one!

i guess i really need to crack on with my application!


Yea! where are you applying for? I have got an offer from Cambridge but no where else. What a levels are you doing?
Its so nice when you have it finished and sent off!
Hi, just a heads up, if you want to get a feel for the pattern of job vacancies in orthoptics you can sign up to NHS jobs by email for the orthoptist search term - you'll get an email whenever there is a job going in England or Wales. With regards to career progression, orthoptics now has many subspecialties including stroke care, low vision, glaucoma and paediatric functional vision assessment. Some orthoptists are even assisting in theatre with squint ops now!

There is also the research path too - I just finished my PhD in lazy eye and now doing a post doc on computer game treatment for lazy eye. My post doc wage is £35k which is more than what I was getting in the NHS. I miss having a patient case load though! It's a very enjoyable and rewarding job :biggrin:

Starting out as a band 5 your take home wage after tax and student loan etc is about £1200 a month, plenty to live on! Band 6 that goes up to about £1500. You can apply to band 6 jobs but if you're newly qualified they will downgrade it to band 5 for a year or so. You will get band 6 pretty quick because the job spec is really no different between the two bands (sucks that they pay you less for a year for that reason but it's because newly qualified people need longer appointment times to see patients in at first as well as mentoring so costs more money).

You will never get paid as much as an optom in the long term unless you become a head of department, but there's no prereg year for orthoptics so you will get into earning a full salary faster. Also less profit-oriented which is nice! Really though it's horses for courses.

Btw university of Sheffield also has a Twitter feed for orthoptics: http://www.Twitter.com/unishef

Definitely worth checking out Liverpool's videos on their orthoptics website, great interviews with students!
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 52
Original post by madmazda86
Hi, just a heads up, if you want to get a feel for the pattern of job vacancies in orthoptics you can sign up to NHS jobs by email for the orthoptist search term - you'll get an email whenever there is a job going in England or Wales. With regards to career progression, orthoptics now has many subspecialties including stroke care, low vision, glaucoma and paediatric functional vision assessment. Some orthoptists are even assisting in theatre with squint ops now!

There is also the research path too - I just finished my PhD in lazy eye and now doing a post doc on computer game treatment for lazy eye. My post doc wage is £35k which is more than what I was getting in the NHS. I miss having a patient case load though! It's a very enjoyable and rewarding job :biggrin:

Starting out as a band 5 your take home wage after tax and student loan etc is about £1200 a month, plenty to live on! Band 6 that goes up to about £1500. You can apply to band 6 jobs but if you're newly qualified they will downgrade it to band 5 for a year or so. You will get band 6 pretty quick because the job spec is really no different between the two bands (sucks that they pay you less for a year for that reason but it's because newly qualified people need longer appointment times to see patients in at first as well as mentoring so costs more money).

You will never get paid as much as an optom in the long term unless you become a head of department, but there's no prereg year for orthoptics so you will get into earning a full salary faster. Also less profit-oriented which is nice! Really though it's horses for courses.

Btw university of Sheffield also has a Twitter feed for orthoptics: http://www.Twitter.com/punished

Definitely worth checking out Liverpool's videos on their orthoptics website, great interviews with students!




Thanks for that very helpful. What about band 6 to 7. How long does that take?


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Original post by madmazda86
Hi, just a heads up, if you want to get a feel for the pattern of job vacancies in orthoptics you can sign up to NHS jobs by email for the orthoptist search term - you'll get an email whenever there is a job going in England or Wales. With regards to career progression, orthoptics now has many subspecialties including stroke care, low vision, glaucoma and paediatric functional vision assessment. Some orthoptists are even assisting in theatre with squint ops now!

There is also the research path too - I just finished my PhD in lazy eye and now doing a post doc on computer game treatment for lazy eye. My post doc wage is £35k which is more than what I was getting in the NHS. I miss having a patient case load though! It's a very enjoyable and rewarding job :biggrin:


Starting out as a band 5 your take home wage after tax and student loan etc is about £1200 a month, plenty to live on! Band 6 that goes up to about £1500. You can apply to band 6 jobs but if you're newly qualified they will downgrade it to band 5 for a year or so. You will get band 6 pretty quick because the job spec is really no different between the two bands (sucks that they pay you less for a year for that reason but it's because newly qualified people need longer appointment times to see patients in at first as well as mentoring so costs more money).

You will never get paid as much as an optom in the long term unless you become a head of department, but there's no prereg year for orthoptics so you will get into earning a full salary faster. Also less profit-oriented which is nice! Really though it's horses for courses.

Btw university of Sheffield also has a Twitter feed for orthoptics: http://www.Twitter.com/punished

Definitely worth checking out Liverpool's videos on their orthoptics website, great interviews with students!


Thankyou that was really helpful. what university did you study at?
Reply 54
Hi
Does anybody know what time the interview/open day on the 26th at Sheffield will end?
Band 7 is a tricky , basically you need to demonstrate some form of specialism accompanied by masters level proof of expertise (this can be something like clinical tutoring), or be deputy head of department/some other senior post. A few years back there was quite a battle for some orthoptists to get rebanded to band 7 due to the lack of masters level qualifications, but that has been remedied since then through the efforts of the universities and Specialist Interest Groups. It can take a while before you settle into a specialty, but on your placements during training you'll get to see lots of different stuff so you can see what you like.

When I qualified I was interested in low vision so I applied to work in a hospital that ran orthoptic-led low vision clinics, but I worked there for two years and covered all the general clinics to free up the specialist orthoptists to do low vision and clear the waiting list. Only after two years of general practice in orthoptics did I feel ready to take on a specialty, and actually at that point I ended up going off to do my MRes instead. Funny how these things work out! I studied at Liverpool but I qualified in 2008 and things have changed a lot with the course since then! I now work at GCU :smile: I haven't practiced in the NHS since 2010 so the advice I can give is a bit limited unfortunately :frown: Hit up the Uni of Liverpool student ambassadors, they are fab and will answer your questions! I'm sure Sheffield have equivalents too.
Anybody else nervous for the sheffield interviews on Wednesday?
[QUOTE="MichieMelodi;51775687"]Anybody else nervous for the sheffield interviews on Wednesday?[/QUOTE
Me! Ah how are you preparing for it? Just worried they'll ask me something and I won't know what to say aha



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Original post by MichieMelodi
Anybody else nervous for the sheffield interviews on Wednesday?




Me! Ah how are you preparing for it? Just worried they'll ask me something and I won't know what to say aha



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Original post by yaknow 66
Me! Ah how are you preparing for it? Just worried they'll ask me something and I won't know what to say aha



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Literally just gonna go with an open mind and pray for the best :s-smilie:

I feel like overpreparing for an interview with such an ambiguous description will only set us up to fail, so I'll probably just think over the basic questions (why do you wanna do orthoptics etc), look over some notes from hospital work experiences and just remain calm for the most part haha.

How about you?

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