Chapter 120

**Recap for clarification**

The Canadian licensing examinations were broken down into two parts, 1 written exam and 1 practical exam for clinical skills. The American licensing examinations were broken down into 3 parts, the NBEO part 1, 2, and 3. The NBEO part 1 material (and to some extent the NBEO part 2 also) was equivalent to the Canadian written exam. The NBEO part 3 was a practical exam similar to the Canadian practical exam, also known as the OSCE. Passing either both the Canadian Licensing exams or passing all three American Licensing Exams would allow for job entry. 

The last time my class took the OSCEs, it was amidst COVID. If you recall, the other candidates and I complained that we got a lot more protocols to follow during the exam. Another thing you may recall is that we also had complaints from those of us who failed because our equipment was off. If you take our word for it, this essentially meant that it wasn’t really the material that stumped us, it was the conditions of the test and the testing environment that threw us off. 

With this in mind, in terms of deciding what to review after the results of the OSCEs came out, there was a mixed bag of things to do. How much review can you really do if you believed that the exam results were ordained unfairly? As I mentioned, the OSCE study group I had formed with my friends had sort of worked out any issues we may encounter outside of testable content. Here’s the thing though, even after running through all scenarios, we still had months of time before the actual OSCEs retake. Since we couldn’t think of what to do after so much review, we started to get sloppy. That or we got much more in depth than we’ll ever test. 

On some weeks, our sessions would be just us chatting about how crappy our situation was. On other weeks, our weekly review sessions would start normally but then slowly delve into the most controversial and minutiae of optometry. It started to become less and less productive. We had beaten the dead horse too many times. So much so that I felt a lack of motivation to even review for it anymore. Not trying to let up, I knew that I needed some incentive for continued review. In this mindset, I found the NBEO part 3 especially enticing. It was a clinical practical test like the OSCEs and yet just different enough that I’d have to review.

More than just a means to motivate me, if I did do the NBEO part 3 and passed it, I would have passed 2 of the 3 American Board Exams. That meant that should I decide to take the last NBEO part 2 test and pass, then I could use that to get licensed and wouldn’t really need the Canadian tests at all. 

That sounds all very logical right? Very methodical and sensible. Yeah…That it may be, it was still all sort of a lie. It wasn’t the main reason I wanted to do the part 3. There was technically one other factor that sort of drowned out those first two points I brought up. It was that doing the part 3 would be an excuse for me to travel. 

The NBEO part 3 was only held in ONE location. Charlotte, North Carolina. That was just where the testing center was. To get to Charlotte, a plane ride would be horrendously expensive due to Canadian COVID travel restrictions. That is to say, if I wanted to do the NBEO part 3, I’d have to make a road trip. 

This is the best excuse I had for a road trip and I felt like I needed it. Something about COVID and having to stay in as much as you can was started to get to me. Sure, I could go outside and there was still the occasional outdoors breaking session, but it wasn’t traveling. I realized at this point that the years prior to COVID, I had travelled quite a fair bit. I mean, I had Moldova, Mexico, Vancouver and Hong Kong within the span of around 3 years. All of that went to zero as soon as restrictions came in. 

With that in mind, I knew I would need to save up a few weeks of paychecks to pay for the NBEO part 3 and register. I wanted to show my math here because it does tell you of how the world was working at the time. 

The first order of business was consideration of flying. During COVID restrictions, if I flew to North Carolina and back, I would have to self-quarantine in a hotel near Pearson Airport on the way back at my own expense. The cost of that? Unclear! But from online forums, I’ve seen that it could go up to $2,000 CAD for the stay alone (fee for 7-10 days). While this cost was with consideration of food, services and extension depending on circumstances, it was still very discouraging. 

If I drove to North Carolina instead, it would work better. Once again, there would be no restriction going into the States. On the way back, unlike flying, I wouldn’t need to find a hotel, I just had to self-quarantine in any place of residence that was locked off. Then, during that time, I would have to check in every day on an app as well as do an antigen test every now. Since I could just quarantine at any designated room, this was easily the cheaper option. 

Timeline-wise, it would look like this. I’d drive down to North Carolina in a few days, do the exam, drive back in a few days, then self quarantine for 14 days. If we estimated the drive to be broken down into 3 days (so that I wouldn’t be totally exhausted days before my exam), that would be 3 days for driving down, 1 day for the exam, 3 days for driving back and then 14 days for the self-quarantine. 

For time, in total we’re looking at around 21 days. For money, it actually wasn’t that bad. The hotels totalled to be around $380 CAD. The prices were low as COVID pretty much eliminated the demand. As for gas, I figured it wouldn’t be that bad either. Having done the trip and looking with the aid of hindsight, I recalled having to fill up twice on the trip only, which meant around $100 CAD or so. Give or take, the entire trip was around $500 CAD, not a bad price for 2021. 

If anything, the cost of the NBEO part 3 was the most expensive, being around $950 USD. For this cost, I kind of chalked it up to being an investment into my backup plan for getting licensed. 

Since I was working for minimum wage at the time, it took a bit of saving up. But it was just a little bit of saving up I needed. In about half a month, I had the funds to do the test. 

Coincidentally, about half a month is also the amount of time I needed to fully prepare for the exam. 

That’s right. 

Just about two weeks was all the studying I needed. Remember how I said the NBEO part 1 was brutal but very resourceful in the syllabus? Well, as it turns out, the NBEO part 3 would be very resourceful in the syllabus without the brutal amount of content. 

That is to say, it was going to be a breeze.