Review celebrates a major milestone this month. (Yeah, something about 120 years in print.) More importantly, it’s the 20th year of Chairside. Here are just a few of Monty’s best quotes.
The Word from the Street
I came to the conclusion that most of the optometric articles we read are written by someone on a different wavelength than we are … How about an optometric author who talks about how it feels to be out there dealing with optometry, as we Regular Joes and Joannes know it, on the front line?
That’s where I think I come in. I am, I believe, a “street” optometrist. I am, I believe, one of you. (First column, January 1991)
Monty’s Messy Desk
Over the years I’ve created from my desk a wild, unruly landscape of paper, Styrofoam and plastic. Not even my most seasoned employees dare interfere with this most hallowed area of my life.
I will always believe that the great pioneers are mostly disheveled, and that the day I can find the time to straighten my desk is the day I have no patients to see. (June 1991)
Calling the Ophthalmologist
When I started up practice in West Virginia, the Mother of all Optometry Battles was over and the Drug Law was a done deal. By the time I referred my first cataract patient, I was already on a first-name basis with most of the local ophthalmologists. Actually, some I called by first name, some by dirty names, and the rest I never called at all. (September 1991)
Short-Arm Syndrome
I, too, am a Baby Boomer. For years, I’ve been telling all those “old vision” people (presbyopes, you know) that reading glasses and bifocals are no big deal. But this is very different! This is ME we’re talking about! (August 1993)
Chairside Manner
When a patient calls you at home on Sunday, tells you he saw flashes and couldn’t see out of his left eye—and it happened six months ago—don’t say, “That’s why God gave us two eyes.” (July 1998)
New Year’s Resolution
I will offer my patient “two-for-one” deals. I will check two eyes at one examination. (April 2000)
A Really Late Patient
Have you ever had a poor soul’s daughter bring Mom’s glasses in on the day of the funeral and, while inserting the lens, you broke it? I have. That’s why they invented cursing.
(April 2003)
The Mother of All Referrals
Referring my own dear mother for cataract surgery was a big deal. Oh, did I mention that she is amblyopic in the other eye? If you think she was concerned, guess how I felt. (February 2004)
In Hindsight
If you go to the proctologist for a colonoscopy, you’ll see a $49,000 car in his parking lot—and he’ll be wearing a $3 pair of glasses as he analyzes your life as we know it. (June 2004)
His Better Half
My wife Renee is amazing, young, lovely, sexy, intelligent, caring, nurturing, capable, talented, funny and, as you may have guessed, she sometimes reads my column. (January 2006)
Going ‘Green’
We went paperless. We’re all computerized. This saves trees and also keeps a multitude of tech support people well employed in India. (October 2007)
The Good Book
No one has ever looked at an optometrist’s Yellow Pages ad, except the advertising optometrist. (November 2010)
