Welcome to Optometry Simplified.
In this weekly newsletter, I've curated the best resources to help you grow personally and professionally.
My mission is to find what's best for my patients and my practice.
Here's what I've found...
Links I Liked
What systemic workup is needed for each of these vascular diseases?
Having a game plan for patients with ocular ischemic syndrome, artery occlusions, and vein occlusions is crucial to good long-term outcomes. Sheila Setork, OD, and Brian Poustinchian, DO, provide a succinct overview of what to do when you see these patients. Optometry Times
Is longevity science good science?
Fresh off his removal from his short stint at the FDA, Vinay Prasad is back making videos and doing what he does best: separating hype and hubris from evidence based medicine. So far, he's covered nutrition science, caloric restriction, and fiber. Medicine Unpacked
Protecting your practice starts with understanding your biggest risks.
PPP Practice Risk Assessment helps identify potential compliance, billing, HR, and operational gaps that could be impacting your growth and profitability — before they become bigger problems.
Research I'm Reading
A new conceptual framework for patients with keratoconus.
A new article proposes an "interventional keratoconus" framework, i.e., early detection plus epi-on, oxygen-enriched CXL (Epioxa, FDA-approved October 2025) before documented progression, with an economic case that echoes interventional glaucoma. The article is industry-funded, so treat it as a position to evaluate rather than a guideline. Still, the detection and referral-timing questions it raises are worth thinking through for our primary care practices heavy in pediatric care. Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management
Deep Thoughts
I hired two new graduates this summer.
I'm excited for them, but also feel a real responsibility to help them become the kind of clinician they are ambitious and talented enough to be.
The habits they form in these first year will be harder to change at year ten than they were to build in the first place.
So instead of handing them a login and hoping for the best, I decided to treat the first 3-6 months as more of a residency. The kind where the goal is to close the gap between what optometry school taught them and what it actually takes to care for patients the way they deserve.
I want them to be immersed in the mindset and behaviors required to thrive in full-scope primary eye care.
Here's what that looks like.
The clinical foundation.
Before we talk protocols or coding, I want them to read landmark studies. Not the abstracts. The full papers.
A conclusion you've only read in an abstract stays abstract. You can cite it, but it hasn't changed how you think. Work through the actual study, the methods, the patient population, the limitations, and something shifts. It stops being a fact you know and starts being part of how you think and see.
A few I consider required: OHTS, LiGHT, EMGT, AREDS2, DEWS III, DREAM, Protocol V, SCUT, HEDS, ONTT, and several other studies and systematic reviews on topics like vitreomacular interface disorders, OCT interpretation, vascular occlusions, myopia management, amblyopia, and convergence insufficiency.
The Review of Optometry landmark trials piece from late 2024 is a great place to start if you are looking for a summary of the major trials in eye care.
The leadership and culture shelf.
Clinical competence is the floor. What you build above it determines whether you thrive or burn out, whether your team stays or leaves, and whether patients experience something worth coming back to.
The short list: Unreasonable Hospitality for the standard of patient experience. Dweck's Mindset because we believe effort is more important than talent. Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions and The Advantage, because most of what goes wrong in private practice is a people problem, not a clinical one. Collins' Good to Great (and every other one of his books!) for the hedgehog concept, flywheel, and what it actually means to build something. Epstein's Range as a corrective to the over-specialization trap. And Clear's Atomic Habits, because we are habit machines and can either operate on habits that lead us to failure or success.
Clinical protocols and implementation strategies.
This is the practical layer that Chris Wolfe, OD, and I have built for hundreds of doctors over the last 3-4 years. It is the bridge between the research and the exam room.
Twelve modules covering the clinical protocols that drive a medical optometry practice: glaucoma, AMD, the vitreomacular interface, diabetic eye disease, peripheral retina, dry eye, myopia management, binocular vision, surgical co-management, billing and coding, chart auditing, handling vision vs. medical insurance, and how to actually read and apply evidence-based medicine.
The goal at the end of ninety days is not perfection. It's establishing a trajectory. A new hire who knows the landmark evidence, has read a few key books, and has worked through the clinical frameworks for the diseases they'll actually see is ready to grow and launch an incredible career. The one who skips this work is still learning it in year three, usually at the expense of their patients and their team.
The beta cohort.
If you have new hires starting this fall or can see a hire on the horizon, I'm putting together a beta cohort of new grads running from August through November. Two cohorts, weekly online meetings, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. Seats are limited, and I'll intentionally keep the first round small.
If this is where you are and are interested, email me back with a quick "I'm interested in new hire training." I'll send you the details.
Can you do me a favor? If you found any of these resources helpful, share this newsletter with one of our colleagues!
See you next week!
--Kyle Klute, OD, FAAO