Embedded Files
Page 1
On the Virtues of Change In a tumultuous year, we still have much to be excited about. The COVID-19 virus has unequivocally altered all of our lives and practices. Two of us (Drs. Melton and Thomas) have tested positive for the virus—and survived. Once this terrible storm passes, however, our patients will once again be in need of our professional services. We hope the clinical information in this supplement will further equip you to more fully care for your patients in the post-COVID era. You’ll also notice some radical changes to this annual publication. We are broadening our scope of topics this year. Why? Because optometric practice has broadened, too. Simply giving a run-down of drug categories, as we did when this started back in the 1990s, just doesn’t live up to the present moment for optometry. After nearly 25 years of producing a “drug guide,” we want you to get an up-close look at how we three clinicians actually practice, and think about, all facets of optometric care. Thus, Clinical Perspectives on Patient Care is born! Imagine this supplement as a chance to sit alongside us as we consider literally hundreds of different day-to-day challenges. We’ll give you our unvarnished take on all of them. If there is no literature reference, consider the statement to be our professional opinion. Other doctors will no doubt have their own approaches, and that’s fine. Our aim is not to present every conceivable idea—just our own, earned through countless hours in the clinic. For better or worse, we have now managed to accumulate over 80 combined years of intensive clinical experience. Our practice pattern has always been to care for patients with non-surgical eye conditions ourselves. We hold ophthalmic surgeons in high regard, and are most happy to work collegially with them in caring for our patients with surgical needs; otherwise, we manage the extensive gamut of medical eye conditions within our own optometric practices. Rather than chapters per se, this new approach will share a somewhat random selection of topics germane to bringing you up to date on a wide variety of eye conditions and issues, organized in three main sections. Note that we cannot condense four years of clinical training into a single supplement. We are assuming a strong foundation of clinical knowledge by the reader, and are only attempting to add succinct, salient “pearls” to this foundation. Our goal in writing this guide is to help further equip our colleagues with knowledge to provide a broader range of top-quality patient care services. Of all the conditions we need to master, the two most important ones are glaucoma and dry eye disease.
Google Sites
Report abuse