The principles of choosing a hospital for eye care

  Hospitals can be divided into university-affiliated hospitals and ministry (provincial and municipal) hospitals according to administration; general hospitals and specialty hospitals according to function; public hospitals and private hospitals according to ownership; for-profit hospitals and non-profit hospitals according to business nature; tertiary and tertiary hospitals according to size and technology (tertiary A is the highest).  People generally like to go to the big hospitals to see eye disease, which is no excuse. This is because the doctors in large hospitals have a lot of experience, advanced equipment and technology, and the effect of treatment is better than that of general hospitals. However, large hospitals are often overcrowded, and it is not uncommon to wait a day for a minor illness. The difficulty of seeing a doctor in a large hospital is actually the difficulty of getting a specialist to see a doctor. After all, the number of experts is limited, but many patients do not see experts, which makes the limited expert resources more scarce. In fact, in most cases, there is no need to go to a major hospital to find a specialist for the first time, some common visual abnormalities and common eye diseases can be solved by ophthalmologists in general hospitals. The difficulty for patients to determine where their disease should be properly seen and treated is the key to the misconception that patients are willing to go to a major hospital. Therefore, we recommend that patients have a general knowledge of eye care and be able to make a basic assessment and judgment of their disease. This will enable them to decide in advance which hospital to go to for treatment.  For general eye discomfort or abnormalities, it is recommended to go to the nearest specialist at the hospital you frequently visit to make an initial examination, and then after the diagnosis is confirmed, learn more about the famous eye specialists in the region who treat the eye disease and then specialize in treatment. In addition, once the diagnosis is confirmed, you should try to fix a hospital that is most suitable and find the doctor you trust most for treatment. This is because it is troublesome to do such tests repeatedly, and it is not easy to repeatedly tell your symptoms to different doctors, and there is a possibility of misunderstanding. Therefore, finding a trusted doctor and establishing a long-term friendly doctor-patient relationship with him or her is beneficial to the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Especially for some chronic developing eye diseases such as chronic closed-angle glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, etc., long-term treatment by one doctor will facilitate the mastery of the disease process and the control of the disease.  It should be reminded that hospitals generally have their own characteristics, and patients should choose the most suitable hospital based on local reputation. For example, some ophthalmology specializes in treating cataracts, some in treating glaucoma, and some in treating fundus diseases. In today’s highly developed world of eye care, eye care has become so segmented that it is extremely rare to find doctors who specialize in the treatment of all eye diseases. Therefore, patients should choose a hospital based on their condition and the specialties of the local hospital’s ophthalmology department.