Today, I caught a glimpse of a mouse scuttling across the floor in clinic. This was the second I’ve seen (or was it the same one?) since starting my rotation at the VA Eye Clinic. Being away from my home institution has opened my eyes to the world of community ophthalmology. Here, patients are complex, confused, cantankarous, and cataractous. The clinic is run by a small staff, all of whom assume multiple roles. I, for example, am an ophthalmologist-general practitioner-technician-optician-secretary. In the past 2 weeks, I’ve learned tricks like using a needle driver to remove corneal sutures when there’re no jewelers forceps, or how to hit things a certain way to get them to work – the stapler, the printer cartridge, the indirect ophthalmoscope. The perk is being able to take call from home, which until last week had been a foreign concept to me. It gave me the chance to attend a Bat Mitzvah (the female version of a Bar Mitzvah) for the very first time – surprising since I grew up in Brooklyn. It would have been more interesting if we had known Hebrew, but the dinner party was pretty posh. Nevertheless, we opted for Indian food for a friend’s birthday before joining the celebration and dancing.