Knowing the Various Kinds of Eye Care Specialists

The moment you get some blurred vision, you will feel like going to an eye care expert and get yourself diagnosed or evaluated.

Depending upon the person you meet and seek advice, your eye testing process may become simple and event-less or may become more complicated.

A person who is well educated may help you to get your eye problems sorted out quickly and effectively and on the other hand an inexperienced person may complicate things further and may make you to land in troubles.

In order to undergo a regular and a routine eye test or examination, you can seek the services of both ophthalmologists and optometrists.

However, there are technicians who do not have any technical degree or qualifications, conducting eye examination in a precise manner also.

Hence, let this article further clarify many of your doubts as to who will be able to do what type of tests and the article can also help you in deciding your future eye care needs.

Ophthalmologists

An ophthalmologist is in fact a medical graduate graduated from an accredited medical school with a post graduate diagnostic degree.

Hence, any ophthalmologist will have ample knowledge about the various diseases that can afflict your body and a precise information about the diseases such as diabetes, etc. that are capable of having a relative effect and consequences on your eyesight.

There are ophthalmologists who have undergone a course on osteopathic medicine and a board-certified ophthalmologist would have acquired a minimum of three years of residency training other than his/her M.D. degree and would have appeared and passed successfully a variety of extensive written and oral examinations in areas of eye surgery, eye care and other related diseases.

A majority of the practicing ophthalmologists are capable of providing a total eye care starting from the basic eye test, prescription for glasses or contact lenses, etc.

They can also diagnose and detect various eye-related diseases and disorders and be able to provide appropriate medical treatments including laser-assisted surgery.

There are also other ophthalmologists who restrict themselves with performing eye tests, disease diagnosing part, and performing minor eye surgeries only.

Such ophthalmologists will refer their patients to other ophthalmologists or specific sub-specialists who are doctors giving treatment for very specific disease conditions.

There are certain doctors or experts who do not engage in a routine eye examination at all but restrict their activities in treating patients who have specific eye related problems only.

Like any other medical branch, eye care activities or the activities of ophthalmologists have become a more diversified and a sub-specialized one in the last two decades.

Though many politicians make a very big talking point about this scenario, many people still look for experts who have specialized in a particular area of medicine or surgery and always look for surgeons who have done a maximum number of successful surgeries in the past.

Patients always look for experts and in the last decade, this particular anticipation has made a paradigm shift towards looking for experienced experts.

What the above means is that in the event of your looking for a procedure to be done on you, you will always look for an expert in the particular field, ascertain his experience in the field, take a second opinion from an another expert and then make your mind to undergo the treatment.

Further, when it comes to your eye care surgery, then you would like to make your well-informed decision foolproof, as what you risk is your eyesight, your important and the very basic window to the world.

Optometrists

An optometrist is a person who has studied and earned an O.D degree namely the doctor of optometry qualifications. The normal period of this O.D degree study is for four years and it is a post graduation level to be obtained from an optometry school.

The eligibility criteria for enrolling into an O.D postgraduate course is that the candidate should have successfully completed a four-year undergraduate college degree.

The O.D degree from a school of optometry will start from the very basics such as the structure and function of the eye, various mechanisms related to optics and vision, and go up to higher levels of education like diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases.

Many of the optometry schools even have participatory arrangements with few best medical schools and hence the participating students can have the best of education and the necessary experience and exposure to understand matters related to eye as well as the whole of human body.

In general, the practicing optometrists will restrict their scope of activities only with diagnosing part of any eye problems and never indulge in extending any treatment for the diagnosed conditions.

However, they are well qualified to prescribe glasses and contact lenses so as to make their patients get an improved eye vision.

Optometrists are also qualified to carryout tests to identify or diagnose eye-related diseases. They are also well qualified to diagnose other bodily related disease and refer the patients to an appropriate medical practitioner for further treatment.

A recent improvement is that optometrists are also getting their knowledge improved on matters such as extending eye care treatment for non-complicated eye diseases and there are also few licensed optometrist who can assist in eye surgery along with ophthalmologists.

Opticians

An optician is a person who will carry out the prescriptions made either by ophthalmologist or optometrist in fixing glasses, adjusting glasses and doing other jobs related to any optical devices.

In few states, opticians are also licensed to fit and dispense contact lenses based on the prescriptions made.

All the specialists involved in eye care admit that each of the above-mentioned professionals are having separate roles and at the same time a complimentary role that can be made very beneficial to the society at large.

They are also of opinion that such homogenous groups can be beneficially merged in future so as to extend a comprehensive eye care to the masses in an inexpensive and very patient friendly manner much to the advantage of the patients and to the insurance companies as well.

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