[PowercarveJen]

Hi all-
I am a new grad (May 04) and have been working at an Eye Surgery Center. Does anyone else out there work in this kind of area. We do retina, glaucoma, trauma, plastics, cataracts. We have 3 CRNA's that perform general and local anesthesia. I would be interested to hear from any of you. We have 11 surgeons and life can get a little crazy.
We work 4 10s and are not open weekends or holidays, I never would have imagined that I would have gotten this job right out of school. Look forward to hearing from you.

[appleorchard]

I'm the only nurse (RN) in a retinal practice that just starting doing photodynamic therapy in the office (involves IV infusion of dye, which is why they needed an RN). I'm really enjoying it, especially the hours, which are 8-4, more or less. Flexible schedule and I'm in charge of myself and no one else, which is a big change from my last job as nurse coordinator of an IVF center. Any other PDT nurses out there?

[PowercarveJen]

Yes-
We do FA injections. We have two retina doc's and are very busy with them. They do OPT, laser, surgery and steroid injections. I do about 60-70 Fa injections a quarter and we have about 15 other RN's that do them also. Do you also do surgeries at your facility(buckles/vits)? Look forward to hearing from you.

[appleorchard]

We do lots of FAs too, probably 20 or so per day. I had a terrible time getting halfway decent at using butterflies, especially on older veins! I still miss more than I'd like and have read everything on the internet about starting IVs on older people.My previous IV experience was all on people under 50 (infertility patients and labor and delivery). I hate blowing the vein and knowing the patient is going to be in pain from the dye. We don't do surgeries, strictly an office setting, but a busy one; our docs see 60-70 patients a day. Most days there's 1 doc in the office; those days aren't bad! When there's 2, it's very hectic. I don't do anything but PDTs and FA injections, but PDTs take about an hour each; I have 7 slots a day for PDTs, and they need to be watched the whole time the dye is infusing, because extravasations can be so destructive to tissue. Opthamalogy is really an interesting field; I feel very fortunate to have found this job!

[mtneye]

I Have 5 yrs experience as a opthalmic assistant and was wondering what Salary ranges to expect.

[kittylvr]

I work at a 4 doctor retina practice. We also do FA's and PDT's and do office surgeries and I assist in the OR doing vitrectomy/membrane peels, RD repairs, etc... Our doctors won't let anyone else do the IV sticks for the PDT because if they blow they are responsible, not us. I like working here but do not feel I utilize all of my knowledge and the doctors do not respect us. Here in Florida Ophthalmic Techs make between 23,000-28,000 per year.

[MrsK1223]

I work in an outpatient surgery center where we have about 6 eye docs that use our facility for cataract surgery. On occasion we have to do vitrectomies. Some of these docs do blephs as well, ptyrigium repairs, ectropian and entropians. I work almost every day. We probably do 40-60 cataract and other eye cases a week. This is in addition to all the other surgeries we perform from other specialties. We have several CRNA's that administer sedation. I am a circulator for them. I enjoy the patient care and the job itself. Management of our facility is what makes our jobs miserable.