eye doctors

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

[cross-posted to Menotomy, Davis_Square, and my LJ]
I see eye doctors every year or two, but I don't usually feel a strong personal attachment to them. Sometimes I go home thinking, "That was a disaster. I'm never going THERE again." More often I go home thinking, "Well, that probably wasn't more unpleasant than it needed to be." But when I change health insurance plans, it never bothers me if the last eye doctor I saw is not covered under the new plan.

My new HMO suggested some ophthalmologists in Arlington, North Cambridge, and Davis Square. (I'd rather not travel further, if I don't have to.) As most of them are in only 4 offices, I thought some of you might be able to tell me about your experiences with them. They are at:
366 Mass Ave (in Arlington, just east of the center)
281 Mass Ave (in Arlington, near Bates Road)
2285 Mass Ave (north Cambridge, near the bikeway crossing)
40 Holland St (Davis Square)

I'm looking for an ophthalmologist who is not pushy about getting fat patients to lose weight, or about trying to sell laser surgery to nearsighted patients. (I don't know if some doctors have forgotten how vulnerable a person feels with eyes dilated and some stranger's fingers on the eyelid, or if they're using that vulnerability on purpose.) If you've had visual field measurements, I'd like to know how they handled those. For routine eye exams, they just hold that little light in different places and ask if you can see it with your peripheral vision. But for diagnosing some kinds of neurological or retinal problems, they need to map the visual field in much more detail. There are different ways of doing it, and some are said to be less uncomfortable than others.

Comments

[docorion.livejournal.com]

In general, if visual field examination is uncomfortable, they're doing it wrong.

A Goldman perimetry analyzer is basically a bowl with fixed or moving projected lights. You have one eye covered, but your chin in the cup, and push the button whenever you see the lights. It's the most common method, and the one used by Scott Sylvia, the optometrist I go to.(2038 Mass Ave in Cambridge, co-located with General Optical).

Most new eye docs (of whatever stripe) will mention laser surgery at least once, because it's popular, and a money maker. Scott mentioned it to me once, I told him I wasn't interested, and he hasn't mentioned it again, which has been my experience with most eye docs. (OTOH, I'm also a doc myself, which discourages pushy behaviour on the part of other docs :-)

[syntheticnature.livejournal.com]

I go to Scott Sylvia's office too and neither he nor his colleague, um, whose name I've completely forgotten... anyway, neither of them have pressured me to consider laser surgery. And I'm not a doc.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Thanks for recommending Scott Sylvia, but he's not in my HMO. I don't mind having relatively few choices about this, but it still comes down to not having much choice.