So you want to be a successful ophthalmologist? The first step is knowing how to spell ophthalmologist. The second step is knowing a successful ophthalmologist when you see one. Ophthalmologists are short and quiet, drive nondescript cars and wear expensive watches.

Don’t confuse ophthalmologists with other doctors. Doctors are a dime a dozen. Ophthalmologists are not. Unlike other doctors, ophthalmologists:
1. Have more money.
2. Want more.
3. Think that they will be happy if they look well dressed.
4. Are wrong about that.

Seriously, and with apologies to Hartford and colleagues¹: ophthalmologists are not well understood. There is a looming crisis of access to surgical eye care. Michael Howcroft tells me that, in the absence of any intervention, needs-based modelling scenarios predict a deficit of up to 150 ophthalmologists in Ontario by 2006. Although we need to train ophthalmologists to meet the demand of baby boomers and an aging population, ophthalmology has been marginalized and left without the resources to offer young graduates. Our next few years will need to be spent actively changing and improving perceptions.

Ian M. MacDonald, MD, CM
Editor-in-Chief
Reference

1. Hartford D, Phillips L, Steale M, Unger R. How to be a mogul. New York: Clarson N. Potter; 1986.