Like his clinician colleagues across Wilmer, Neil Bressler, M.D., the James P. Gills Professor of Ophthalmology, is using an individualized approach to determine if — and when — his patients should come in to be seen.

“At Wilmer, we’ve been intimately involved in many large clinical trials for the treatment of conditions such as diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration — conditions that, if left untreated, can lead to vision loss. We’re able to apply the wealth of knowledge we’ve acquired about these conditions and their treatments in the context of each patient.

“We consider what condition they have, where they are in their treatment, any subjective changes in vision, the amount of time since their last treatment, and what their vision, imaging and retina exam showed at that time. All of these factors help us determine, on an individual basis, whether a patient needs to be seen at this time. It might be that they can wait a month. Maybe they should come for an injection only, and then we can reassess them in a month, or maybe we do a formal assessment of their vision or obtain imaging.

"We’ve done this for every single patient, and it’s worked extremely well. Patients have uniformly expressed how thankful they are that the staff and physicians are making every effort to maximize their vision and prognosis in an era of new challenges."