NOA 2024: Eyerie Academics takes on student wellness and exam preparation

For Eyerie Academics, ensuring that optometry students are prioritizing their wellbeing and entering both their medical field and exams feeling well prepared for what awaits them. Camille F. Cohen, OD, FAAO, and Janis James, OD, FAAO, cofounders of Eyerie, discuss lectures given during this year's National Optometric Association Convention and what lies ahead for the organization.

Video transcript

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Camille F. Cohen, OD, FAAO:

Hello, I am Dr. Camille Cohen.

Janis James, OD, FAAO:

And I'm Dr. Janis James.

Cohen:

And we are the duo for Eyerie Academics LLC. It is a mental health or a holistic approach to test preparation, really hoping to be an anchor for students. We first met during the COVID quarantine when we were assisting mentees on Zoom. Just very impromptu sessions, helping them manage testing anxiety, managing organizational skills, and how to better approach or preparation for not just board exams, but their semesters. That forged a friendship and a business partnership. Dr. James is excellent with organizational skills. We literally just finished lecturing to students at the NOA convention, helping them prepare for the upcoming semesters, especially for our third and fourth year students. And we have the privilege of announcing a new program that will be starting.

James:

Yes, this program's going to be available this fall, we're now providing 6 week sessions with students to help them with test preparation and organizing themselves. We also have our Eyerie academics planner, we have a new kidney review that we did to help the students learn about anatomy and physiology of the kidney. And we also have a journal to help with mindfulness and to help with wellness.

Cohen:

Yes, so our whole real goal is always focusing on wellness — the whole student — not just memorizing for a test, but how do you prepare yourself, mind, body, and spirit for not just exams but for approaching clinic, approaching this profession that you've entered, this wonderful profession that we love. We're very excited that we will be partnering with VSP In this program. We hope to, in a sense, mirror what we did in our quarantine sessions just to be more of an anchor or a support system for students.