Patient Stereotyping at the Optometry Clinic

A friend of mine, now in his eighties, had been unhappy with his distance vision for several years. Each year or so he had his eyes tested at an optometry clinic run by a nearby university where there was a school of optometry. On these occasions he would ask whether he should consider cataract surgery. Each time he was told that it would probably do no good because his distance vision was not that bad. This year he learned that he had drusen, yellow deposits under the retina. These marks, he was told, might be early signs macular degeneration, which might be contributing to his vision loss and would not be helped by cataract surgery.

 

At the optometry clinic, my friend’s eyes were examined by students whose work was then checked by a faculty member. Some of these students were observing certain eye conditions on a live patient for the first time; they had only previously seen them in textbooks or online. In addition, typical patients at the clinic were other students or faculty in their thirties through early sixties. Relatively few older people were seen there.

My friend decided to get a second opinion. He visited an optometry practice that uses state-of-the-art tests and equipment to examine and treat conditions affecting vision. There, the typical patient is in their sixties or older and the doctors on staff have had years of experience treating such patients. The doctor who saw my friend told him that he was a good candidate for cataract surgery; that there would be a significant improvement in his distance vision. After looking at the drusen, he told my friend that there are different types; the kind my friend had might never cause any vision problems at all. 

My friend just got cataract surgery and, after less than a week, already has better distance vision than he had had with his glasses.