Let's just cut the B.S.

[Andromeda1]

I am a family doc and I have been observing these forums for quite some time now and I have to say I am disgusted. I send most of my patients with eye related problems to a couple optometrists that I know well. I have received my own eye care from an OD for years ranging from the routine exam, glasses. to a pretty nasty eye infections and he has treated me just fine. I can say with confidence that optometrists are eye doctors and deserving of that title. Most of the patients I refer to them are very happy with the care they receive. I am not equating an OD to an ophthalmologist but the OD's do most of the routine, comprehensive primary eye care where I practice. Some of the students on here whether they be medical students or optometry etc.....seem to have all the answers figured out and that is absurd. I went to medical school and we got very little eye-related training...seriously. We as MD's are not better than anybody rather we are unique in our abilities and scope. Anyone on here that feels they are "better than" the likes of optometrists, dentists, or whoever went into medicine for the wrong reasons and need to learn a little humility. We all contribute to the "big picture" of patient health.

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[discontinuebed]

I am a family doc

2 posts, new account, made after all the trouble has been started. Yeah, that's easy to believe.

Let's lock again before it degenerates.

 

[orbitsurgMD]

I am a family doc and I have been observing these forums for quite some time now and I have to say I am disgusted. I send most of my patients with eye related problems to a couple optometrists that I know well. I have received my own eye care from an OD for years ranging from the routine exam, glasses. to a pretty nasty eye infections and he has treated me just fine. I can say with confidence that optometrists are eye doctors and deserving of that title. Most of the patients I refer to them are very happy with the care they receive. I am not equating an OD to an ophthalmologist but the OD's do most of the routine, comprehensive primary eye care where I practice. Some of the students on here whether they be medical students or optometry etc.....seem to have all the answers figured out and that is absurd. I went to medical school and we got very little eye-related training...seriously. We as MD's are not better than anybody rather we are unique in our abilities and scope. Anyone on here that feels they are "better than" the likes of optometrists, dentists, or whoever went into medicine for the wrong reasons and need to learn a little humility. We all contribute to the "big picture" of patient health.

Hard to argue with anything here. But your comment is besides the point as concerns other posts lately. There seem to be a couple of student optometrists who are full of opinions and eager to look for places to leave them. Coming onto a ophthalmology student forum and posting that you think optometrists is as good or better than ophthalmologists at diagnosis of "primary eye disease" (whatever that is; I don't recall anything called "primary eye disease" in my residency or fellowship) is wrong and inflammatory. I am sure those posters at least meant the latter.

How satisfied patients are with one provided or another or one treatment or another is a mental trap and error. Satisfaction, subjective and personal as it is (despite the pretense at a metric by Press-Ganey charlatans) is not an indicator of quality or necessity; all it is is a survey of recollected pleasure.
Selling pleasing experiences and services might be gratifying and lucrative, but it isn't what the practice of medicine should be about, at least as long as we want to call ourselves professionals.

 

[yaah]

One account per user, please. Closing this thread.