I’m just shy of a decade of practicing ophthalmology. In ten years time I’ve listened to a lot of questions from my patients and learned that many of these questions are asked again and again (only by different people). It occurred to me that if my patients are asking these questions, so are the three million other patients in the US that have cataract surgery every year.
So I created this website. My hope is that the blog format will allow me to provide real-time updates to those questions my patients are asking. As a secondary benefit, I hope that this blog will be informative to anyone with cataracts or eye disease who shares similar questions about the eyes.
In the spirit of a blog (and at the request of my patients) I will also be somewhat indulgent in the following manner: the single most common question I hear is not about eye disease, but about my daughter, Arden.
To those who are internally moaning “Oh no, not another ‘Isn’t my child cute’ site, I have the following to say: I understand your reaction; I was there. Prior to Arden’s birth I thought most parent’s gushing about their kids was about as bearable as fingernails on a chalkboard.All that changed with her birth. If you’re not a parent and don’t get it, you won’t until you are. And, I promise that the primary focus of this blog will be on eye disease.
Another thing: as an eye surgeon I have learned the importance of managing expectations. I truly love what I do and am ‘old school’ when it comes to many things such as taking call for my patients after hours and on the weekends (rather than forwarding my office phone number to a message that directs patients to the emergency room for after-hours problems). However, I would like to avoid the trap many doctors get into: sacrificing their family life for the professional demands of practicing medicine. As such, I will try to update this blog most weekdays but will generally not publish posts on the weekend.
I look forward to what I hope will be an interactive and educational experience for my patients, other readers of this blog, and myself.
Sincerely,
David D. Richardson, M.D.
Medical Director
San Marino Eye
2020 Huntington Drive
San Marino, CA 91108
[edited: 08.14.2014]
Thank you for starting this blog. It has been very informative so far, especially when commenting on conferences, meetings, etc. and that kind of information, that doesn’t reach the public so easily.
If you run out of blog-ideas, I would like to know more about diopters, and how much is needed, and how much the eye changes when accomodating from 10 yards to 20 yards.
I’m glad that you are finding this information useful. It was partially my frustration with what is reported in the mainstream media that led me to publish this blog. Through no fault of reporters (after all, they have a huge amount of information to sort through and very little time in which to do it) most of the information about advances in surgery (eye or otherwise) is either filtered down to only the positive elements or little more than a shill for the surgical product.
David D. Richardson, M.D.
Medical Director
San Marino Eye
I’m always looking for new blog ideas and will add a discussion about the dioptric power of the lens to my quickly growing list.
David D. Richardson, M.D.
Medical Director
San Marino Eye