There are a couple common truths about ophthalmology that are well-known by physicians, and that patients are surprised to learn. Surgeons often play music in the operating room (not just Mozart, often Rock & Roll!) while they are working on your eye, and some eye diseases are, against all rational explanation, as beautiful as fine art.
Put away any bias you've had if you've seen an image of a lung filled with years of black smoke and lung cancer, and instead ponder the sparkling red and green, "Christmas Tree Cataract." And no, that's not a Hollywood contact lens you're looking at, it's a white pupil, also known as leukocoria. Eight years ago, a young woman without health insurance who was rejected by three prior physicians arrived crying into my office, pleading with me to save her from going blind. The fluorescein angiography test that we performed on her revealed hundreds of white dots that looked like the Van Gogh painting, Starry Starry Night, and was the rare condition, Vogt Koyanagi Harada Syndrome. (I cured her with oral steroids.) And last week, a patient presented with a history diagnosed elsewhere as primary open angle glaucoma that was actually Pseudoexfoliative Glaucoma, with the classic target lesion on her lens.
For ophthalmologists like myself, the eye is not only the window to the soul, it is the window that often reveals your total body health. Using our highly technical microscopes and electronic instruments, the eye is magnified as if it were on a giant movie screen. We examine every structure of that 1 inch marble in exquisite detail. We see, both directly and electronically, the tiniest yellow drusen in your retina from macular degeneration. We watch the irregular sheen of your tear film if you have dry eye syndrome. It's amazing at times, frustrating at other times. The power is in your hands for your eye health. See your eye doctor regularly. Take your eye vitamins.
