Dr Hom and I are pleased to announce this collaborative effort. After exchanging a series of tweets, it became clear that Optometrists and Ophthalmologists work together in caring for patients with eye diseases but these patterns can differ depending on our communities. We hope that by contributing articles to this space with comments by other Optometrists and Ophthalmologists, that we can better care for our patients. Please add your comments to the articles as they appear below. (Your comments will be reviewed before they appear.) -- Dr Robert Schertzer
This is meant to represent the collective opinion of what Ophthalmologists believe are in the best interest of caring for patients with glaucoma. So, rush over to visit the guidelines in full text that are now in press, then hurry back here to add your comments and lets get talking!
...in the last ten or even twenty years, optometrsists have either gained the legislative privilege and educational preparation to diagnose and manage most of the common forms of glaucoma. The ophthalmologist might find it heartening then, that a referral from a more progressive optometrist might not be a false positive referral (one that is assumed to have glaucoma but doesn’t require medical treatment). In these cases, the optometrists will liekly refer a patient who may have an advancing form of glaucoma that may not be amenable to a single or even dual topical therapy.
Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 7:14PM