Clinica London five-star service

At Clinica, we aim to provide five-star service to our patients

Today I had a lovely thank you letter from the Mum of a young man aged 18 years old. The young man came to see me with his mother because the optician had found high intraocular pressure.
My job had been to make sure that there was no glaucoma and that his eyes were healthy and had no hidden problems that could concern him over the next few years when he goes to university.
Fortunately, everything was fine, and despite him having had slightly high eye pressure at the opticians, it was normal in the clinic, the discs were normal, and the visual fields were normal. In fact, all of the eye tests were normal, and I was delighted to be able to reassure him that he has healthy eyes.
I showed him the technical imaging pictures of the back of his eye which we could see on the SLO so that he could see his normal optic discs, macular and retina. I told him to ignore the fact that he could see the eyelashes in the pictures and just to concentrate on the orangey colour, which was the retina. Then we looked using the OCT machine at the cell layers of the macula and over the disc, and I showed him how the retina was made up. I explained to him that he had healthy eyes.
The young man was greatly relieved and went out apparently “on cloud 9”. I had given him the green light that there was nothing with which to be concerned.
In the lovely letter, his mother said that the whole experience and the detailed report they had afterwards had been very much appreciated. She praised my bedside manner and told me that “the thing of real value” to her son was the way I spoke and behaved with him. This is because I respect teenagers and young adults. I am interested in what they do and how they think, and in dispelling their inner fears and concerns. I am interested to hear them describe their eye symptoms and their anxieties about their eyes. I want to share that interest with them and show them the ophthalmic imaging pictures of their eyes so they can understand what is going on; whether there is a pathology or an abnormality. His mother told me that they had received excellent service that truly did exceed their expectations from the minute they stepped in the door and after they had left.