IN 1500, the Dutch philosopher, Desiderius “Erasmus” Roterodamus collected his proverbs in the Adagia. Contained therein is his proverb, “In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king”—the Latin for which is the title of this article. What Erasmus was saying is that you don’t have to be the best in the world, you just have to be the best in your area.

You don’t have to outrun the bear; you just have to outrun the slowest guy being chased by the bear. You don’t have to be the best poker player in the world; you just have to be the best player at the table. You get the idea. 

So, is there an opportunity to open new areas in your practice that can drive patient retention and satisfaction with a minimum of disruption and investment? The answer is “Definitely, yes!” 

When looking to expand into areas of specialty contact lens practice, and I include all of the dry eye realm as it directly bears on the success of specialty contact lenses, there is a plethora of opportunities to add successful, new offerings to your armamentarium.

So many of my colleagues avoid expanding their offerings because they think they must be on the level of the most skilled practitioner to offer a service. That is not true. There is a certain level of expertise that is required to offer a service successfully, and that level is way short of the level of expertise demonstrated by all the talking heads on the lecture circuit. Yes, the better you are at something, the better you are, but you don’t have to be the best in the field to improve the lives of patients.

You need to strive to be the best player in your area. Be a one-eyed king in your land of the blind. Make the investment in technology and in the didactic information needed to add this new specialty service, like myopia management or scleral lenses, to be something other than a menace to society. Seriously, maybe, you should aim just a bit higher than that.

We are quick to spend money on new toys that have a good return on investment. That is a good strategy, but the relatively small amount of money that is required to gain new knowledge makes improving your skill level the best return on investment for your practice.

It is important to adhere to the standard of care when entering a new area of practice. For example, it is important that you know what is required to meet the standard of care for myopia management.

You can’t take on myopia management with soft lenses only, in my opinion. You need to know how to use all of the tools necessary to manage myopia. That means that you need to know how and on whom to manage myopia medically, or with GP orthokeratology, and with spectacles.

It is also important to have the tools that you need. That may include instrumentation, but it may also require the purchase of diagnostic lens sets and enrollment in myopia management dashboards to facilitate ordering lens products for the patient.

You can succeed as a one-eyed king, but you better have really good vision in your one eye if you want to rule your land of the blind. CLS