Do you have an optical nightmare? Gordon strode through the front door just before noon. The first thing that he noticed was the unmistakable odor of tuna. This was not the welcome scent of a freshly seared sesame-crusted tuna steak. Of course it wasn’t. Rather, the stench that was currently assailing his nostrils was more of the canned variety. Perhaps even the canned … [Read more...]
Cyber Security and Recent Incidents
Many optometrists and optometry students have reported receiving Chase Bank Amazon credit cards in the mail, even though they never applied for new credit cards from the bank or from Amazon. Many of these same people have received credit alerts on their accounts when they were contacted by credit reference agencies to alert them that there had been a failed attempt to open up … [Read more...]
Kentucky College of Optometry
In continuing our look at schools of optometry across the country, we wanted to take a look at the newest one – the Kentucky College of Optometry (KYCO), located at the University of Pikeville. Since they don't actually have any students yet, as their first class begins this fall, I spoke with Dr. Andrew Buzzelli, the Founding Dean of KYCO. Q: So, Dr. Buzzelli, why open a new … [Read more...]
Waiter! There’s some cylinder in my sphere!
NERD ALERT! (for all your super-duper techie stuff) One of the most frequent ‘problems’ that I hear about when talking about compensated lenses is when we’re dealing with spheres. All too frequent are exchanges like this: Doctor: I ordered this lens as a sphere, but there’s cylinder in it - it’s wrong! Lab: Yes, I understand you ordered it as a sphere, but the … [Read more...]
“Will I go blind?”
Don’t Forget The Angles According to the authors of the “Atlas of Glaucoma” by Dr. Paul Henkind and Dr. Richard Starita, “the simplest definition of glaucoma is that condition of the eye where the intraocular pressure is elevated beyond the limit that will permit normal function of the optic nerve.” This definition implies the presence of an abnormal intraocular pressure, … [Read more...]
So, you decided you want to be an O.D.
That’s great! As with any field, one of the things that’s always good to know is the perspective of those that have gone before you. Learning first hand what things you can do now do increase your success in the future. There’s always a gap between ‘educational setting’ and ‘real world’ demands, and finding out first hand is probably the most valuable thing you can do. To that … [Read more...]
opti-Bored?
There is an impressive number of social media outlets available today, and sometimes it can be hard to tell which one is good for what. Especially when you look at them from a professional point of view. The one thing that many of these outlets have is that they were all in some way derived from a common ancestor - the internet forum. This was one of the first popular … [Read more...]
Contact Lens Do’s and Don’ts
Contact Lenses... Opticians are generally professionally diligent when it comes to instructing patients on the proper cleaning and wearing schedule of contact lenses. Unfortunately, I believe much more of the information that patients need to safely and effectively wear contact lenses is withheld by opticians, who for whatever reason, assume the information is known or … [Read more...]
Words you probably don’t want to hear!
“You are so lucky to have wet macula degeneration” One of my oldest friends came back from an appointment at a world-renowned Boston eye clinic, and with a history of vision loss in his family, these were not unexpected words but ones he clearly did not wish to hear. The good news is that the doc gave him an injection (Lucentis I think) and eventually arrested the disease and … [Read more...]