My brother is in his third year of med. school and he wanted to go into optho. Unfortunately, he had his first case of iritis just a couple of months ago and still undergoing treatment. His recent step 1 score is competitive and he really wants to do optho. but with this new eye disease he has gotten really depressed. I would assume that like pilots, an opthal. would need reliable vision - even with glasses. Is his dream of becoming an opthalmologist over? BTW, he tested positive for HLA-B27 and also has lattice degen. Thanks for advance for any thoughts.
is there a future with iritis?
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sorry I don't understand what you mean by that...
lots of inflammation, which might create long term sequelae. With the concerns your friend has, your friend should probe their doctor about the risk. If for example his vision is already down to 20/40 ou then that could be significant for an ophtho career.
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If he suffered from cancer can he become an oncologist? If he suffered from migraines can he become a neurologist, etc.
I know of a good Cornea/Lasik specialist who has an obvious strabismus. With so much competition out there, his eye disease may be reason he is granted a residency.
I dont think their point was that anybody with an EYE disease cant be an EYE doctor because it's a disease of the eye. I think their concern is about binocular vision should one eye suddenly start having some trouble. It'd be the same concern for someone going into Neurosurgery or any other microsurgical field for that matter. Sure you might be good enough to operate with one eye using color/depth clues, but it's certainly easier to operate with binocular cues.
