The silent killer of Premium IOL success is the unheard patient.

It kills premium IOLs in two ways.

First, here and now, for this particular patient who is cautious or anxious.

Second, in the long run, when an unheard patient receives an IOL that was never really aligned with their personal visual values – only with the “needs” we expected or wrote in the chart.

Quite often, surgeons really try to do their best. They explain all the options, or they offer the most clinically relevant IOL from their point of view – full range of vision for a myope, enhanced monofocal for a high hyperope, and so on.

And this works well for maybe two thirds of patients.

But in the remaining one third, you can easily miss something important in this patient’s life. And if just 10% of those misaligned patients become very vocal on social media, with friends and family, and in Google reviews – you already have a big problem.

This small, unhappy, but very loud group is the one who creates the horror stories.

They push back many others who were thinking about surgery but were not sure yet.

For them, these stories become a strong confirmation of “why NOT”.

So the problem and the direction of the solution are very clear.

You don’t need this deep approach for every single patient – some will get an ideal fit almost automatically.

But you never really know who is sitting in front of you.

That’s why listening first, asking about values, and opening a real discussion about their life and vision makes a huge difference. And note - there is nothing to deal with patient education, as we know it!

But how to educate them? And how to deal with empathy?

You do not need to “learn empathy” on some soft-skill course.

What you really need is a structure and an atmosphere where the patient helps you to hear what really matters.

Smart Sight Framework™ (a part of PDDA™) is my way to make this discussion structured and repeatable - so patients help you to hear what really matters, and together you choose an IOL that lets them not only see better, but live better with this vision. Read more at my website. 

Oleksii Sologub,

MSc, LLB, MBA

Patient Communication Strategist | Speaker | Author