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From the AAO lecture hall to my own clinic
It's the last day of the AAO meeting and my feet ache and I'm still a bit jet-lagged, but I feel energized with an enthusiasm to apply what I've learned at the meeting to my own practice. The surgical pearls and techniques are what fascinate me the most. Watch Dr. Brian Little's capsulorrhexis retrieval technique or Dr. Boris Malyugin's pupil expansion ring technique, and you'll be convinced that there are some very bright people in ophthalmology.
 The Malyugin pupil expansion ring from MST. |
Both of these techniques have the elements of simplicity and elegance — something that I don't often find in practice management talks, until I heard Shareef Mahdavi talking about the Patient Experience. Of course, what common sense — give the same type of complete patient experience to your patients that you'd like for yourself. It's not just about the surgery or the eye — it's about the patient.
So as I head back to Los Angeles, with my suitcase stuffed full of pamphlets, info packs, videos, equipment, and that massive program book (why can't we have this electronically on our Blackberry or iPhone instead of carrying around this 400 page weapon?), I'll do my best for my patients by implementing the top surgical techniques for their surgeries and making their visit to my clinic a pleasurable experience. And I'll try to invent something that's more clever than the Malyugin ring ... but that may be tough.