BLOG: When inspiration strikes, you come out of retirement
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I am a lifelong Billy Joel fan. I started to follow the Piano Man when he was making the college tours in the 1970s. My wife and I had our first date at one of his concerts.
Our youngest son recently took us to see him again at the Phillies’ new ballpark. As a baby boomer, I felt like he wrote the soundtrack to our generation.
When this talented artist was coaxed out of retirement to cowrite and perform a new song, I was truly inspired. After 17 years, we are finally singing something familiar yet new, and it feels great. In the lyrics, he asks, “Did I wait too long to turn the lights back on?” The answer for most of us is, “No!” and “Welcome back!”
I wrote my last blog in October 2020. After 7 years and 131 articles, I needed a change of pace. In the middle of the pandemic and with a future that did not seem as secure as usual, I needed to step back and regroup.
Today is a new day. Optometry has survived, the profession has moved in a new direction and we continue to thrive. Many of my colleagues used the pandemic as an exit strategy and moved into retirement. Likewise, many faculty members in the schools and colleges of optometry have stepped down.
Those of us who were trained with traditional techniques of applying the science of optics and biology to the examination and treatment of the human visual system have been replaced with clinicians who rely solely on technology. Glasses are read with an auto-lensometer; refraction is done with an autorefractor and refined with an autophoropter. The physical exam is done with wide-angle imaging and tomography. Often, even the treatment plan is cut and pasted from the internet.
There is now a knowledge gap that occurs when new technology cannot read the optics of the eye or provide useful images due to media opacities. If the technology fails, it seems that no one knows how to solve a clinical problem or help the patient. Often a call goes up to find the old guy who can use a retinoscope and remembers how to do binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy or — heaven forbid — use a direct ophthalmoscope.
So perhaps there is still an opportunity to provide some advice and direction for the young clinicians and new leaders of our profession. This new blog series will move beyond health care reform, take a broader look at optometry and provide some traditional insights — or at least food for thought — and a new platform for discussion. I hope to invite guests from the past and provide an opportunity for different points of view.
And lastly, I hope to offer some “tongue-in-cheek” levity to a profession that sometimes needs a smile to smooth out the rough spots.
For more information:
Scott A. Edmonds, OD, FAAO, specializes in vision-based neurorehabilitation at Edmonds Eye Associates in Philadelphia. He can be reached at scott@edmondsgroup.com.
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