Who put the sarcastic quarter in you.. so looking forward to sitting next to a "professional" like you in the future
I don't think ASCRS allows "Optometric Surgeons" to attend yet so I don't think we'll be able to sit next to each other unfortunately until you become a real surgeon. Maybe as a medical student I'll see you there. I think you'll find it a similar environment to this thread.
And are you ever going to address the point I'm making or just continue to skirt the question and troll this thread?
It's funny how every time someone is trying to make a point in one of these discussions, they always have the most absurd example of incompetence that they saw "just today." It's ALWAYS "just today." And the second statement will always be "yea! I see cases like that EVERY day."
The problem with these discussions is that they always bring out scenarios like this and drives a wedge between the professions. We've all seen mismanaged patients by Optometrists. We've also all seen mismanaged patients to Ophthalmologists. We're not going to bring up the 70 year old MD still operating doing ECCEs on everyone that we all think should re-train or retire. But he's out there too. However the issue is that we know the training he at least initially went through was very rigorous, we know the dense pathology that he mastered in residency because we all went through it, and we know that OD education just simply does not provide what we consider to be an adequate level of training to prepare ODs for the procedures in these bills because although rare most of us have seen complications from these 'simple' procedures.
Lets all be honest - it isn't really a 'patient access' issue when we're talking about YAG, SLT and PRK. All of the arguments about patient access to timely care are fairly absurd. Come on now. If there's not an Ophthalmologist in an area doing those procedures they'd be happy to come to an OD's office a couple of times per month and provide that service I'm sure. Believe it or not we MDs really do have legitimate concerns about patient safety - and that is our primary concern - but we also want to remain the sole provider of these procedures for control as well. I mean ODs already control all of the referrals we get for our most common surgery - cataracts - and we don't want to give you anything else to have us on a leash with.
And I think we all know good and well that many ODs introducing this bill aren't concerned about patient access - they want to do cash-only refractive procedures like YAGs and PRK without having to go medical school and match into an Ophthalmology residency. They want to do SLTs because it seems "easy" and they can make money doing them. These people went to Optometry school and then decided they wanted to be a surgeon and wanted to make a surgeon's salary but didn't want to do the work required to become one or have to deal with any difficult cases. They want their cake and they want to eat it too and have convinced themselves that they know better than those with more training who are saying that they shouldn't do them and despite the fact that there isn't another country in the world where ODs do procedures like this. At least this OD/MD guy is actually doing the right training, despite his trolling. His opinion will change as he progresses in training, if he can match.
I am also sure that there are a minority of ODs lobbying for expansion that really have patient's best interest at heart who really want to be able to offer their patients better care, but I think those ODs are a bit misinformed. KHE's points about control of the Optometry profession do not fall on deaf ears - I understand this issue and I'm willing to bet that this is why most ODs support bills like this. They want to control the future of their own profession, which is a noble goal. But I think State Medical Boards - not Optometry Boards - control access to procedures for all other appropriate medical professions and surgical scope control should fall with State Medical Boards. What ODs need and deserve is a seat at the table and place of prominence in discussions about their privileges. State Medical Boards aren't controlled by Ophthalmologists, they are comprised of multi-disciplinary MDs and DOs and are not maliciously limiting scope of practice for other professions.
That's as honest as I can make my views about this - But nobody is being really honest here because this is politics not reality.
Whatever happens with all of these bills, I hope we can get through this soon. Because if we can't, our two professions are going to tear each other apart. And when we're all too bloodied to work together then nobody wins - patients especially. And while we're fighting each other, both of our reimbursements are steadily declining too.