Phones vs. Eyes

1/4/2022

During these past few weeks, I took the time to reflect on my original work. I thought back on how I originally brainstormed my idea, which allowed me to see the changes I had made throughout the process. I also reflected on the skills I had learned from the obstacles of my original work, which included learning to find connections, understand the complexities of medicine, and more. Overall, I was able to tie all my work together and see how effectively it contributed to the pediatric ophthalmology field. I believe that my research recommendations can increase awareness of the lack of research in the field, in addition to helping guide researchers toward areas that need focus. As this major project comes to an end, I will begin brainstorming for my final product. This brings up the consideration of whether I would like to continue to focus on the same issue of research needs in pediatric ophthalmology or change the direction. I am excited to incorporate the experience and expertise I gain from shadowing my mentor this semester to help with my final product. Additionally, over the winter break, I also took the time to explore an interesting topic related to pediatric ophthalmology of how technology impacts children’s eyes. As I often have heard that using technology like phones can hurt my vision, I was interested to see how true this was. I learned of various factors that can make children more susceptible to various eye strains, including behavioral and situational differences from adults. Children also have very few studies conducted on this correlation, which supports the trend I have been exploring about research in the field. I am looking forward to continuing to explore various new aspects of the pediatric ophthalmology field in my coming work.