Dr. Georges Baikoff

Guest faculty: Professor M. Blumenthal, Dr. George Baikoff, Dr. Fabio Dossi, Dr. N. Stahl, Dr. I. Lipshitz, Dr. Fernando Navarro.

Georges Baikoff, MD, Clinique Monticelli Marseilles, Marseilles, France

Launch video

Using the Visante OCT for Studying the Anterior Segment, Tuesday, October 18, 10 a.m., Professor Georges Baikoff, M.D., Marseille, France

Guest faculty: Professor M. Blumenthal, Dr. George Baikoff, Dr. Fabio Dossi, Dr. N. Stahl, Dr. I. Lipshitz, Dr. Fernando Navarro.

Georges Baikoff MD, Professor of Eye Surgery at the Ophthalmology Centre of the Monticelli Clinic in Marseilles, blames political myopia for the difficulties faced by French ophthalmology.

"Like other medical disciplines, ophthalmology is threatened by the short term policy of the administration authorities," says Dr Baikoff, who also serves on the Surveillance Council of SAFIR.Such political short-sightedness manifests itself in a decrease in the quality and rising costs of the public service, he adds.As a result, fewer young French ophthalmologists are entering the public service, Dr Baikoff observes.

"The Public Service is regularly deteriorating to such a point that fewer and fewer French residents wish to participate in the surgery departments.Foreign doctors with lesser qualifications are being progressively absorbed into the public sector to compensate for its insufficiencies."Private ophthalmologists, however, are not free of such external pressures, he notes.Private ophthalmology, like its public counterpart, faces significant challenges in the years ahead."Private medicine is much more slyly threatened by the development of capitalistic companies wishing to dominate private medicine," Prof Baikoff asserts."The problem today may be acceptable but it will become very serious when an ‘all-in price pathology' is adopted."When such bundling of hospital and professional fees occurs, "doctors will have trouble negotiating their fees with the private hospitals who will be unwilling to share with them," he predicts.
...
Sources: Marc Weiser MD; Georges Baikoff MD; Société de l'Association Française des Implants at de la chirurgie Réfractive (SAFIR); European Union of Medical Specialists; The Economist; Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.