Why Would Someone Need Two Eye Doctors?

By John Choi, MD

Macular degeneration, floaters and retinal detachments are some of the problems a retina specialist may treat. Other eye doctors usually refer patients to a retina specialist.

Many times patients ask why they need to see their other eye doctor since their retina specialist is taking care of them. This is a good question. Why put up with the time and expense of seeing two eye doctors?

There are actually many kinds of eye doctors. Although the eye is small, it is incredibly complicated. So complicated that it's impossible for a single doctor to know everything about it. Eye doctors have divided this huge pie of eye knowledge into smaller, more manageable slices or specialties.

Specialists generally deal only with the problems they specialize in. For example, a retina specialist may only treat patients with macular degeneration. They don't prescribe glasses, and they don't treat cataracts or glaucoma, conditions which they probably don't know as much about.

Those issues are left to the primary eye doctor who referred the patient to other eye specialists since they are more knowledgeable about those conditions. It's like maintaining a house plumbers fix the pipes, and electricians handle the wiring.

While this system means seeing more eye doctors which can be burdensome, having each condition managed by the best-trained and most-knowledgeable doctor leads to the highest quality of care for that most precious resource, eyesight.