Buying Loupes

[Pilot Doc]

Can anyone comment on how to select a pair of loupes? (I'll be buying them myself - the program doesn't pay for them.)

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[Winged Scapula]

Originally posted by Pilot Doc
Can anyone comment on how to select a pair of loupes? (I'll be buying them myself - the program doesn't pay for them.)

Mine paid and selected the vendor (Designs for Vision) so I didn't have much choice. However, like with most equipment you should consider the following:

ease of repair (ie, if you have to send the darn things to Germany to be fixed it might not be worth it)

"feel" - do they feel comfortable on your face, are they too heavy?

cost

repair/replacement policies

I wouldn't worry too much about how "cool" you look - they frankly all look pretty lame. Even the supposedly cooler aviator wire frame styles aren't all that (maybe they were in the 70s/early 80s). I was worried that I would bend or break the wire frames so settled on the matte black frames.

 

[Surgdude]

I also got Designs for Vision Loupes. One of the nice things that the rep said (so take it with a grain of salt) was that if you decide that they don't fit right, have the wrong focal length, etc., then you can send them back to them and they will repair/replace components, unlike other loupes that supposedly don't have the interchangeable parts and need to be built from scratch. Not sure if this is necessarily true, but since the program only offered one supplier, I was willing to bite.

Probably should just go with the 2.5X normal-width field as well. Have a friend from my program who just left for plastics fellowship who got 3.5X wide-fields and he can hardly wear them for an entire case since they're too heavy. Almost needed to put duoderm on his nose before cases.

Take my comments for what they're worth. So far, I'm happy with the DfV loupes.

 

[ent_doc]

In ENT, 2.5x is the most anyone needs unless you are doing microvascular recon under loupes--then, usually 3.5x is the way to go.

DFV loupes are A++

 

[surg]

If your program doesn't pay for loupes, you might want to consider what I did at my program. We called the local salespeople for the 3 major manufacturers of loupes (Designs for Visions, Surgical Acuity, and one other one who I am blanking on at the moment) and had them come in for a head to head comparison one evening in the house officers' area WITH food. I organized the residents from Gen Surg, ENT, Ortho (hand), Plastics, Urology and anyone else interested (a few fellows and attendings that were looking for loupe replacements or upgrades).

We had them stay for about 2 hours so people could come and try on all the various brands one right after the other and make their own decisions. We also made the sales people offer a flat price that was a discount off the resident price (average ~10% off), no matter how many we, as a group bought, and allow our residents to access that price for a time period after that day in case they missed it.

Of the people that tried all 3, I'd say about 2/3 bought Surgical Acuity (AKA Orascoptic) 2.5X loupes which were the equivalent of DFV 2.5X extended field loupes, because they were cheaper and many felt that they liked the optics better (rounder field compared to the Extended field, and bigger field compared to the 2.5X standards). The other 1/3 mostly bought DFV 2.5X and a few buying 3.5X of various brands (mostly plastics residents)

 

[Minimalist M]

grea advice, got to keep that in mind when it's my turn to buy loupes!

 

[ItsGavinC]

I also have the Surgitel 2.5 and they work like a charm!

 

[surg]

Surgitel! yes that's the one I was blanking on. At the time they only have the flipups, but they had a 2.5 TTL (Through the Lens) one just coming out. I was impressed with their optics but really wanted TTLs.

 

[unregistered]

In ENT, you don't really need loupes... and there isn't anyone who does microvascular with loupes; it's all done with an operating scope. If you specialize in plastics or peds ENT, then it seems reasonable to get a pair of 2.5x. Just my $0.02