eyeball wars - page 2

Do you know who is taking care of your eyes? That question is at the heart of “Joanne’s Story” a video about a Vero Beach woman who nearly lost her eyesight after an ophthalmologist caught a rare diagnosis which was missed by her optometrist. Joanne was previously under the care of an optometrist who diagnosed her with a “small cataract.” A retinal surgeon removed the cataract, and Joanne returned to the optometrist for the remainder of her care. After several…

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Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Nearly four years have passed since the truce was called in the decades-long “eyeballs war” between Florida optometrists and ophthalmologists. But with the Legislative Session approaching, that fragile peace seems all but finished. Optometrists are seemingly going back on their word, working behind the scenes to file legislation to allow them to perform surgery, a proposal that scientific research suggests may not be a good idea. Several signs indicate optometrists had become progressively uneasy since…

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As Anton Chekhov once said: If it’s not essential, don’t include it in the story. What would the great Russian novelist and playwright make of recent movements in Florida’s seemingly never-neverending Eyeball Wars between ophthalmologists and optometrists? “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off,” Chekhov wrote in 1911. “If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”…

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For nearly two decades, Tallahassee was the front line of an epic battle — the so-called “Eyeball Wars” — between Florida’s optometrists and ophthalmologists. On one side were optometrists — college educated to provide diagnoses and correct vision problems — fighting to perform surgery and prescribe medications beyond topical ointments and creams. Ophthalmologists, supported by the influential Florida Medical Association, argue that optometrists lacked sufficient credentials and training as medical doctors to perform such intricate procedures. After years of legislative…

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