Specialist Care is often Required It can’t be denied that, at times, specialist medical care or procedures are what patients need as opposed to regular, everyday treatments one gets for a cold, a sore throat or the ailments people suffer from. Specialist doctors are those that offer even more qualifications than your GP or the doctor you take your children to for normal checkups or the surgeries they, the GP, performs. Doctors can attend to women when they have their babies, but in more serious cases the intervention of a gynaecologist is called for. Think, too, of those times when our eye sight starts to deteriorate. We may need glasses so we make an appointment with the optician who can test our eye sight and prescribe contact lenses or eye glasses. In more advanced cases the intervention of an optometrist may be needed, say for the treatment of certain eye conditions, but in serious cases you see the ophthalmologist who is a specialist medical doctor. This specialist can perform the duties of a doctor, and more: they receive further training to become eye specialists that can perform various surgeries for instance that the GP won’t. Ophthalmologists can work in private practice, and patients can either contact them directly or be referred by their GP, or an optician or optometrist. Some ophthalmologists work in big hospitals and others, still, combine a hospital position with private practice, depending on how they schedule their routines. In big cities with big hospitals such as, say, New York, Manchester or London a few of these ophthalmologists – eye specialists – may hold a very senior position in the hospital that employs their services and they become what is called consultant ophthalmologists. This happens for only the very best specialists, those that have proved their abilities and skills. They are in charge of other doctors and normally train other, less experienced medical staff, such as, for instance, the doctor that aspires to become an ophthalmologist themselves. Of course these specialists offer varied sought-after services because of their years’ training and experience, and very often they are the ones that stand out and are approached by patients – or by referring GP’s – for their services. As is the case in some specialist fields, the ophthalmologist may also offer different services – or concentrate their efforts in a specific area. Some may be interested in treating purely medical conditions to the eye to correct eye sight, to help patients see better, whereas others may decide they are more interested in offering patients
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