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The ultimate in trust
When I teach the UCLA residents, it's at a large LA County hospital, and most of the patients get no-cost or low-cost health care. It's a very busy place, with 80 to 100 patients seen in the eye clinic per day. And the patients show the ultimate in trust: They trust their eyes to resident physicians, who are still learning surgery.
We ensure that all resident surgeries are closely supervised and staffed by an experienced attending surgeon. This makes for a better learning experience for the resident, but more importantly, it ensures that the patient receives a higher level of care and the best outcome possible in their situation.
We have the responsibility to provide the best care possible to these trusting patients and to graciously thank them for trusting their most precious sense, their vision, to the surgeons in training.
I'm indebted to the hundreds of patients who trusted me with their eyes back when I was a resident, about 10 years ago. Now, with thousands of surgeries under my belt, I realize that these initial patients exhibited the ultimate in trust and they helped make me into a better doctor. Thank you.