It's all in your head, people

[texaseyes]

I found this interesting article on dry eye treatments and future treatments. However, at the bottom of the article there was something that made me sick to my stomach. Check out Dr. Sheppard's comments under patient problems.

http://www.eyeworld.org/article.php?sid=2554

[Guest]

I found this interesting article on dry eye treatments and future treatments. However, at the bottom of the article there was something that made me sick to my stomach. Check out Dr. Sheppard's comments under patient problems.

http://www.eyeworld.org/article.php?sid=2554

Just makes my blood boil reading this.

"Last patient you want to see on a busy day", "psychosomatic problems", "Eat up a lot of chair time". What is this guy smoking?????

I'm not a violent person but in this case I would happily make an exception.

Ian

[Rebecca Petris]

With no offense whatever intended to Texaseyes, I'm going to suggest that reading this sort of thing is not a good idea - especially to those in the hardest part of their dry eye struggle. While there may be medical points of interest, there are better sources. Unguarded comments by doctors not meant for the eyes of patients can only be distressing and don't do anyone any good.

[kitty]

I realize this quote was published in 2005. I would hope his opinions have changed since then. Nothing could be more offensive to a dry eye sufferer than to read such a statement from someone that any dry eye sufferer would likely turn to for some help. As a nurse, I have learned not to take such comments so personally. Most lay people do not have that luxury. All health care professionals should be reminded that what they say and write may be viewed by lay people, even if the context is a "professional" one.

[texaseyes]

The article actually has a lot of good information in it....
Regardless of the audience to which the article was intended, that doctor obviously has a completely uncaring, cold-hearted attitude. Is it okay for him to feel that way as long as he keeps it amongst his "professional" collegues? Of course not! My own LASIK surgeon told me to blink more and tape my eyelids closed at night when I turned to him for help with my dry eye - how's that for compassion? These are the people we trust(ed), and now we are considered a problem for them????? Okay, I'm done. Thanks for listening.

Texaseyes

[kitty]

A response from the good doctor

I could not leave this alone and contacted Dr. Sheppard about his offensive comments. Here is his response:

"Your comments are appreciated, but taken totally out of context. We see thousands of dry eye patients in our practice of all varieties, and bring the vast majority to successful results. My wife and I both suffer from dry eye, successfully treated.

The quote describes the litigious patient with symptoms far beyond findings, an unfortunately common visit to leading dry eye practices like ours. The quote was not intended for misinterpretation by the lay public, but for the professional Ophthalmologist audience in Eye World.

Best regards,

John Sheppard, MD"

Is every patient who files a lawsuit faking? Have we not all read research studies that demonstrate objective findings do not necessarily correlate with the severity of the symptoms? I still don't like the tone. I'm done.

[Rebecca Petris]

I'm not going to defend the comments. If you look hard enough among the professional mags I'm sure you could find much more like it and worse. But for what it's worth, Dr. Sheppard has been well liked and respected by several patients I know including Dry Eye Talk members.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record:

I do not want vocal criticism of named doctors or anything bordering on it here on Dry Eye Talk. It is not constructive. It helps no one. It furthers no useful cause. I can't imagine it makes anyone feel any better either. But what it will certainly do is hurt our site's reputation with doctors - which ultimately makes the site less useful to the people who most need to find it. Many doctors refer their patients to this site for informaiton, and it took us a long time to achieve that. If we sound off about specific doctors here, well, word travels fast.

For venting, there is always private messaging, email, phone, unmoderated boards....

Lecture over.