Clinical Placement and Internship Program

OD4 Internship Clinical Placement Program

Practitioners are invited to participate in the internship program by hosting students at their clinic. The fourth year of the OD is about interns gaining breadth of experience and clinical confidence before graduation. OD4 students gain their core clinical experiences from UMEyecare and ACO. In this final year, interns gain authentic clinical optometry experience from exposure to a range of settings (rural, specialist, metropolitan, hospital & ophthalmology), working through actual cases in rounds with experienced optometrists and continuing to build on their knowledge and skills through targeted self-directed learning.

All we ask is that clinical supervisors provide a safe, authentic learning environment for interns and offer scaffolding, feedback and mentoring.

Interns spend two lots of two weeks in a rural practice, one day for six weeks in a general metropolitan practice and one day for three weeks at a specialised metropolitan practice.

Further information is available here:

• Information for Internship Hosts
• Metropolitan Practice Placement Survey
• Rural Practice Information Survey

OD3 Mid-Year Clinical Placement Program

Practitioners are invited to participate in the OD3 clinical placement program. Third year OD students start seeing a significant number of patients at both UMEyecare and the Australian College of Optometry. We are seeking practitioners who are willing to host one or more OD3 students in their practice for 1 day per week for three weeks, generally in the first three weeks of July.  This is a period between Semesters where our students will still be attending clinical duties but will not have lectures to attend. The broad aim of the program is for the student to observe an optometrist in action in a private practice setting and how they interact with their patients and staff.

Further information is available here:

• Information for OD3 Hosts
• Metropolitan Practice Placement Survey

Benefits for Hosting Doctor of Optometry Students

Mentoring the next generation of optometrists can be very rewarding.  It is the opportunity to meet young, thoughtful and engaging students who will be the future of the profession. Hosts (Clinical Placement Supervisors) will have the opportunity to develop their clinical teaching skills, be involved in the teaching/learning process and be actively engaged in collaborative links with the University. In addition to this, hosts are eligible to claim five CPD points per semester for participation in postgraduate optometric education (see OBA, Guidelines for continuing professional development for endorsed and non-endorsed optometrists)

Recognition of support for the program

To show our appreciation to Clinical Placement Supervisors who participate in our External Placement Program, we are pleased to offer:

• a DOVS newsletter that will inform Clinical Placement Supervisors of teaching and learning initiatives;
• a certificate of appreciation specifying that the Clinical Placement Supervisor (and their practice) contributes to the University of Melbourne teaching program;
• access to expert teachers, clinicians and teaching resources;
• special rates for Specialist Certificates in Clinical Optometry offered by the Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences (DOVS) which can potentially lead onto the Master of Clinical Optometry;
• acknowledgement of participating Clinical Placement  Supervisors on the department website as an Adjunct Clinical Teaching Instructor;
• networking opportunities;
• invitations to Webinars and Seminars to discuss the sharing of good teaching and learning practices.