Are you planning cataract surgery? Understand your choices; don’t leave your happiness on the table

In the field of cataract surgery, advances in technology have left patients with an increasingly bewildering set of choices. Additionally, there is a great deal of customization of vision that can occur even without advanced technology. The gulf between what is available, and what patients understand, continues to widen.

Over the past several years I have found myself spending more time in clinic trying to help patients understand their options, and feeling less satisfied with my ability to do so. I felt that I was leaving happiness on the table with some patients, who did not understand the consequences of their decisions. Other patients exhibited inappropriate faith in costly technology that would not help in their particular case. I know that many of my colleagues feel this way as well.

I searched for resources on the internet to help patients understand their options, but no website organized the information necessary in a way that was centered on the needs of the patient.

This was why I created www.cataractsurgerydesign.com. The core mission of this website: to educate patients regarding their choices in cataract surgery, to provide simulations of important phenomena, and to do both tasks free of commercial bias.

So if you are about to have cataract surgery, give yourself a lifelong gift by getting educated before sitting down with your surgeon to plan your surgery. Don’t leave your happiness on the table.