Ophthalmology

Physicians, hospitals and large provider groups are beginning to understand the high costs of physician burnout.

Layoffs are tough. But, the economic downturn, lower insurance reimbursements, increased business expenses and the expectation that medical practices “do more with less†may make layoffs unavoidable.

You do your best to attract qualified job candidates, ask the right interview questions and ultimately hire the best and the brightest to work at your practice. But, no matter what you do, it is inevitable that you will have problems with your workers from time to time.

At one point or another, every medical practice will have to deal with unmotivated employees. Unmotivated staff members can cause all sorts of problems, from a slowdown in productivity to decreased profits, poor morale and patient dissatisfaction.

Physicians do not usually burn themselves out. The majority of the time it is the work environment which burns out the physician. Certain conditions and circumstances in the workplace can set-up unsuspecting doctors for job related burnout. You can take an on fire, passionate, purpose driven physician and put them in the wrong work environment and you will burn them out.

“Flip the Clinic†is an open experiment that involves breaking the traditional health care mold. Clinic flippers are using a new strategies and techniques to empower patients and engage them in their health care while maximizing time with practitioners.

People not blessed with 20/20 vision often choose to wear contact lenses to avoid cumbersome eyeglasses.

New technology uses the eyes to assess brain injuries in student athletes.

Even if you know what you’re doing, it can be hard to make good hires. Because doctors are trained to practice medicine, many receive little or no training in how to run a business—or how to make great hires for non-clinical positions. Here are some tried-and-true tips to help you make sure your next hire doesn’t turn into your next headache.

The practice of medicine moves pretty fast, leaving little time for doctors to involve themselves with insurance, paperwork and office business processes. Of course, quality doctors and nurses are critical to excellent patient care. But without the right office staff, your practice could quickly be sent into a tailspin.

In my last post, I discussed the characteristics that good nurses possess that enable them to make a positive impact on a patient’s care experience. Unfortunately, bad nurses can make a significant negative impact on patient care—sometimes even more profoundly.

The anticonvulsant drug phenytoin may protect neural tissue in patients with optic neuritis, a common symptom of multiple sclerosis.

Encephalitis can change vision, but it does not alter the retinal structure, a German study found.

Patients afflicted with vitiligo often have significant differences in Schirmer test results, lens, and fundus findings.

Overall, three drugs available to treat diabetic macular edema all did a good job, researchers found in a national clinical trial. One costs $60 per injection, the others cost over $1,200 and $1,850. But the most expensive one did best in a subset of patients.

Monitoring the health of patients around the clock is a challenging job. From the physician’s standpoint, that is just one aspect of what happens during the day. It’s even more challenging to meet the many other needs that patients have, such as answering questions and keeping them happy and comfortable. Good nurses know how to juggle all these jobs, and many more

By advocating, providing education and keeping an eye out for red flags, excellent nurses can play a critical role in keeping patients safe and healthy. Here are some ways that nurses help doctors to do their jobs better.

Not only do children born with microcephaly have smaller-than-normal brain and head size, but the Zika virus-associated condition is suspected to cause ocular problems as well.

Ocular discomfort and pain are not uncommon for patients with dry eye; however, it may be surprising to hear that these patients may have more non-ocular pain conditions as well.

Study results suggest that C-reactive protein levels might be used as a biomarker to determine the severity of diabetic retinopathy. To this point, such a connection has remained controversial.

Multiple sclerosis patients with histories of neuro-ophthalmic symptoms tend to perform poorly on neuropsychological tasks.

Behcet's syndrome continues to puzzle rheumatologists.Several studies in 2014 and 2015 examined various aspects of this rare disorder.

A UK team reporting at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA said it found that adalimumab (Humira/AbbVie) helped patients who had active JIA-associated uveitis

Eyelid myoclonia with absences (EMA) can be misdiagnosed as a tic disorder, and reassessment of patients with particular symptoms is advisable.

Eye banks are generally thought to be a safe place to get tissue for corneal transplant. But a New Hampshire team reporting at ID Week 2015 in San Diego, CA said they found two post-operative candida infections in corneal transplant recipients .

Cats and dogs can be vectors for an eye parasite, a multi-center team in the US Southwest reports. The parasite is called Onchocerca lupi. Six cases, believed to be the first in the US, are reported.

A recent study showed that retinal abnormalities detected through objective electrophysiological measurements may help identify the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder and possibly other psychological conditions.

Researchers found that not only are patients with psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis at higher risk for uveitis, the association is bidirectional: patients with uveitis are at increased risk for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis

Patients with diabetes face a variety of health challenges as a result of their condition, including diabetic blindness. A team of researchers at the University of Virginia is working with stem cells to try and prevent loss of vision in these patients due to diabetic retinopathy.

Researcher report that higher levels of neuronal activity are associated with increased production of myelin in animal models – a finding which may eventually help the development of multiple sclerosis therapies.