Top Reasons To Be An Ophthalmologist

Interest and Aptitude

A career in ophthalmology will be a tedious use of your time if you don't have any interest in health care. As an ophthalmologist, you will spend your days seeing patients, diagnosing their problems and performing corrective vision procedures. Therefore, you should be interested in science, how the eye works, and performing meticulous procedures to correct vision. You should also be comfortable interacting with patients on a regular basis and explaining technical concepts to people who need to know what is going on with their eyes.

Salary

One of the most compelling reasons to become an ophthalmologist is the salary. The average base salary is $245,000 per year, and the middle 50 percent of ophthalmologists earn between $220,000 and $284,000 per year. Even as you are just starting out with a job after your residency, you can expect to earn around $197,000, because fewer than 10 percent of ophthalmologists earn less than that. The top 10 percent of ophthalmologists earn an annual salary of more than $320,000. In addition, expect to get a generous benefits package, including health insurance, matching contributions for a retirement account and a generous allocation of paid time off. Even though you may have to take out loans for medical school, you can expect to quickly repay them after you start working.

Personal Connection

Individuals who have bad eyesight and have benefited greatly from the service of ophthalmologists in their lifetime generally make good ophthalmologists themselves. This is because experience leads to a personal connection and a desire to help others receive the results and quality of life that you have gotten. This personal connection might be what causes you to become interested in ophthalmology in the first place, and what keeps you interested in the field even after you start working.

Job Security

Ophthalmology is a field that is growing, and you can be fairly confident that the number of jobs in the field will not dwindle over time. Even if you lose your job as an ophthalmologist in an established office, you can open your own practice somewhere else and fill a need in another community. People are suffering vision loss at an increasingly early age because of the number of people who work in front of computer screens for much of the day, which puts a large amount of strain on the eyes. In addition, the baby boomer population is aging, which is leading to an increased rate of age related eye problems, including cataracts and glaucoma. Plus, with increases in technology for laser eye surgery, more and more individuals are opting to have surgical vision correction from an ophthalmologist.



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