Part 4: Ask the Experts: What problem in ophthalmology do you wish there was a solution for?

This series features experts in ophthalmology sharing their thoughts on the one unsolved challenge they wish there was a solution for.

Video Transcript:

Editor's note: The below transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Brent Kramer, MD:

One thing that I do a lot of, and you know, the doctors I work with in clinic do a lot of, is we try to educate patients on what life is going to be like after cataract surgery. And so think about this, think about you're buying a car. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to sit you down in a chair, have you close your eyes, and then try to explain the car that you've never seen a picture of. You've never test driven it or anything like that. And so one thing that I love is be able to give patients the ability to test drive potential vision after cataract surgery with different lens options and different, you know, refractive targets, and I think that would save us. I mean, I love education and all components, but educating patients is so important. And being able to educate a patient instead of just talking through it, being able to just show them, I would love that solution.

Jonathan Tan:

I would say, I think this isn't unique to ophthalmology. I think there is a lot of information out there, a lot of research. It just takes a while for that to get communicated throughout the system, throughout to the public. If there is some way for that to be more effective and more quick, it would kind of slow the downtime between research and actually implementation. I think that's something that could help get these findings out much faster and get them implemented in the real world.

Jonathan Brugger, MD:

If you want to go on to the spectrum of getting treatment to all patients, that's the real solution. We're all working towards curing diseases. We're all working now. In the past year and a half, we have even treatment for dry macula degeneration, which is revolutionary, and we're even working towards restoring that vision. But I think ultimately, despite all these therapeutics, if we can't give that access to patients, whether it is through their health insurance or through access to care, it's going to be futile, and only certain individuals are going to have that access you.