DR. JILLIAN CHONG
Focus Through the Generations (FTTG) offers insight from four different generations of the nation's top ophthalmologists. Hear from the experts themselves on their varying life experiences in the industry.
As a third-generation ophthalmologist, Dr. Jillian Chong graduated from the Ohio State University College of Medicine & Public Health in 2016. She is currently a cornea and refractive fellow at the Cleveland Clinic.
hear from dr. JILLIAN CHONG
Our host, Polly Neely had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Jillian Chong for an exclusive discussion regarding her life and industry experiences. Get to know Dr. Chong a little deeper in this episode of “Focus Through the Generations”.
Polly Neely: Thank you all for joining us this evening. We are here today with Jillian Chong, MD, and she is going to share with us this afternoon, in our program, Focus Through the Generations. We realized that there are four generations of actively practicing ophthalmologists in the U S today. So, Vision Care Connect wanted to have some fun with that and interview these four generations and see what their thoughts are about what's happened in our industry, what's happened in our world with COVID and, also just where they're going to go in general, and any advice that they would have to their next generation, or even the generation ahead of them on how to leave it better for them.
I want to say thank you to our partner, Bruder Healthcare. And they made part of this possible and we're really grateful for them. So, let's get started. Hi, Dr. Chong, how are you?
Dr. Jillian Chong: I'm doing well. Thanks so much for letting me be involved.
Polly Neely: Well, thank you for offering and being a participant. I want to give you a moment just to introduce yourself and let the audience know who you are and a little bit about you.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Well, I'm Jillian Chong. I'm a cornea and refractive surgery fellow at the Cleveland Clinic. And part of the reason I was so interested in this is, when you said Focus Through the Generations, I'm a third-generation ophthalmologist, but not directly. My grandmother was an ophthalmologist. And she was my inspiration, my whole life, she's an incredible woman. She's the first woman in her residency program at UCSF in the 1940s. Just a really cool person doing her cataracts with the Von Graefe Knife intracap. Just an incredible person. And then my uncle is an ophthalmologist, but I'm the only one in my family who's currently practicing.
Polly Neely: That's awesome. So, you're third generation and your grandmother.
Dr. Jillian Chong: I know.
Polly Neely: Wow, what a pioneer.
Dr. Jillian Chong: She's an incredible woman.
Polly Neely: Way ahead of her time; go her! What was your grandmother's name?
Dr. Jillian Chong: Her name was Emma Dong. She practiced in Salinas Valley, California.
Dr. Emma Dong
Polly Neely: So, she inspired you.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Very much. Everybody else's grandmothers were making them pie and giving them teddy bears, and my grandmother gave me a microscope for my birthday. So, it was on a scale model eye. I had a scale model eye since I was like six or seven. So, she definitely knew where she wanted me to go.
Polly Neely: Oh, that's wonderful. You've made her proud.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Yeah. I couldn't imagine doing anything else, and I'm so happy.
Polly Neely: You look happy. And you even just got through with an emergency and you still look happy. So, that's pretty impressive. Well, I guess this leads right into the first question, but I don't even know if we have to ask you that. When you were 12, what did you want to be?
Dr. Jillian Chong: I wanted to be an ophthalmologist. I did not know I wanted to do cornea though when I was 12. So, I've now met my goals and I'm growing past them.
Polly Neely: Great. And what made you have the interest in cornea and refractive?
Dr. Jillian Chong: I went into ophthalmology because I wanted to take people from seeing poorly to seeing well. And it just really felt that cornea is the specialty that does that the most frequently with the most success. So, I appreciate our glaucoma colleagues and our retina colleagues, who can take the low vision patients and give them better quality of life. But I think I'm a little bit of a Tinkerbell. I need some applause to survive, and refractive surgery gives me that applause.
Polly Neely: You might give a little shout out to your retina buddy, who loaned you the ring light.
Dr. Jillian Chong: I know! Guneet Sodhi you really saved my butt, giving me a light that makes me look prettier than I am.
Polly Neely: We'll have to put that in there for you, they’ll like that.
Dr. Jillian Chong: I'll make sure he sees it.
Polly Neely: That'll be good. Well, let me ask you something.What is, now you're just in your fellowship here, but what's the most interesting case that your grandmother ever told you about?
Dr. Jillian Chong: You know what? She never told me about cases. She told me about people. She had just a collection of people that were sort of her long-term patients, and she just built these relationships with people. She became this really strong member of her community as a woman in the 40's and 50's. She got to help out other people. That wasn't just in practice, she was in a farming community, where, you know, it was really important to build ties and she got to be a leader. And it was just an amazing life for a woman in that time. I remember when she was in her 90s she had a fall, and she bruised her hip, but she didn't end up breaking any bones. When she was in the rehab facility, all of these former patients were there with her and they're like, oh, “Dr. Dong, do you remember me?” Like sit next to me at lunch. So, she was like the most popular girl in school at a rehab facility. She just knew everybody. She knew everyone's stories and treated whole families. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't love what she did.
Polly Neely: I hope you're the same way. You know, one of the gentlemen that we interviewed, Dr. Manus Kraff said to me one day, he goes, "Kid, if you get a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life." And I love what I do, I don't feel like I've worked a day in my life, and I've enjoyed what I've been doing. What, as far as you had your grandmother goes, she mentored you, and what skills do you think that you have personally that brought you into ophthalmology. Not just your desire, but your skills. What do you think that is?
Dr. Jillian Chong: That's a really good question. Do you mean what skills do I think made me a good ophthalmologist or what skills did I follow that led me here?
Polly Neely: Kind of both. What skills did you think going into this that was going to bring you success? And going forward, what skills do you think these could be; mental, emotional, physical, whatever skills that you feel are going to bring you success.
Dr. Jillian Chong: I love getting to know people. I love hearing people's stories. I think that's what brought me, and I went a long route and I thought maybe I wanted to do something besides medicine for a while. So, I looked into law and I looked into chemistry and things like that. And what I really found is that I really like people's stories. And when I went and did a summer abroad. And I felt like the best way to. The thing that makes me a good doctor is being able to listen to people and find out sort of, close read, the stories that they're telling and figure out what they need. That's what brought me back to medicine. I feel like you get a good amount of chair time in ophthalmology, and you're being able to tease at people's stories pretty quickly, without making them feel rushed is a really important skill. I think that's one of the skills I feel like I'm most proud of, that I've picked up and developed over time.
Polly Neely: I think that's great.
Dr. Jillian Chong: And I think, you know just, that we're always wondering, what ultimately is going to separate us from the machines when we're trying to automate so much, and it's that personal relationship that really makes a difference.
Polly Neely: I agree. I don't think machines will ever replace that, even though they can listen to me and answer me almost correctly. I still prefer not to talk to a machine.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Right.
Polly Neely: I need to look at their smile, to feel some kind of emotion you know. So, I think you're right there, I think that's what's going to set you apart for that. Let me ask you something. Why did you choose where you are for your fellowship?
Dr. Jillian Chong Oh man. So, I knew going into fellowship applications that I was really interested in refractive surgery. But I also wanted to be good at transplants. I wanted to do cornea because I want to treat corneal disease. When I was looking at programs, usually they would focus on one or focus on the other. But what I loved about the CLINIC was that we've got Brad Randleman and B.J. Dupps, who are the editors in chief of JRS and JCRS, respectively. Just titans in refractive surgery. Then we also have high volume transplant surgeons like I'm going to do. I'm going to graduate with like 75 to 80 DMEK's, and I've already done four DALK and we're only two-thirds of the way through the year, almost three quarters, I guess now. But I just feel like it's the program that I've found that gives me the most opportunity to expand my skill set. It doesn't make me, pare down to just one or the other. If I want to do cornea, I'll still be able to do cornea, but I still get to make sure that I get these great refractive outcomes in my LASIK, PRK and SMILE patients. I've even got to put in a couple of ICLs which has been a lot of fun. So, the surgical volume here was incredible and the mentorships even better.
Polly Neely: That's great. Those are all great reasons. And you're in a good field, you're in a field where most of the time, you're going to have wonderful results and patients are going to be so ecstatic. But you're still going to have some that, you know, you're not going to be able to get what they want. But, when you think about corneal grafts, and you think about taking people's eyesight to where it never has been in some cases, it's pretty darn exciting. I applaud you. I agree with everything you're saying.
Dr. Jillian Chong: It's a lot of fun. I feel it's a huge privilege to have the opportunity to do corneal and refractive surgery. And I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life, for the rest of my working life, continuing to do as much of it as I can.
Polly Neely: And are you looking right now for practices? Are you looking to hang out your own shingle or are you going to make something? What do you think the economic climate will lead you to?
Dr. Jillian Chong: So, I'm about to sign with a practice in Beverly Hills, and a friend of a friend, sort of, is the managing partner. I got really lucky with the opportunity to interview and it sounds like it feels like a really great fit. There's plenty of volume that's untapped that I'm looking forward to being able to take care of. It's a market of people who are interested in refractive surgery. So, I'm hopeful that both skill sets will be able to be put to use. But it was a hard choice. There are so many great practices out there. And you know, it's always difficult. It's the first year that I've been able to make a choice about where I'm going since applying for medical school, like almost 10 years ago. Getting the opportunity to make a decision was strange, but really exciting.
Polly Neely: What advice would you give to others that are in your situation to look for? What are some of the checkpoints on their list that they need to look for when they're joining or looking to join a practice?
Dr. Jillian Chong: That's a great question. I think the two things for me that really ended up being selling points for, when I was interviewing were, you have to feel like you get along with the people you're working with, ‘cause, I think a lot of times we forget about that. When we're coming out of residency or coming out of fellowship, we think, oh, you want to know that there's this volume or this much call, or what the salary is, or something like that. You forget that you're hoping to commit, so you’re working with these people for as long as your career goes, as long as their careers are going. So, it's really important, that's even more important in a job, than it is in fellowship. They tell you all the time that you shouldn't go to do the fellowship if you don't like the people there, or it will be miserable for you. And this is the rest of your life. But the other thing that I think that was really important that people told me was, it's a huge decision. But I think for 50% of people, their first job isn't their last. So, you're going to be deciding between a lot of great places and it's an extremely exciting time to be an ophthalmologist. There are going to be a lot of great opportunities. But, you know, when you pick one, you don't have to worry that you're going to be looking back with regrets because your career's just starting. So, A. there's a lot of good options out there, B. got to like the people you're working with, and C. you know, you're making a commitment that you hope is going to be forever, but it doesn't have to be.
Polly Neely: Oh, that's really good advice. And what made you know that this one was the one for you? I mean, I'm curious because I help place people in practices. So, I'm curious, did you work with the practice and the staff? Did you actually get to spend actual working time with them to know that you're going to be a fit for them as well as them a fit for you?
Dr. Jillian Chong: You know, I didn't end up spending time working with them just because it was so far away to travel. So, I didn't get to have as much time with any of the practices I interviewed with as I would've liked to. It's such a hard thing to talk about because, ultimately it was deciding between two practices and I loved both of them. I thought they were both fantastic people, with fantastic business models. Who were, you know, the cutting edge of what they were doing, who were great mentors. I thought that, no, there's no downside for either of the two practices I was deciding between. But ultimately, I'm in a relationship with somebody in Los Angeles. The other job was in San Francisco, closer to my family. I made the choice that, if I really believe in my relationship, I can't stay long distance forever. So that was what kind of sealed the deal. But I mean, I know enough about the practice I'm working with and I know they're really honest people. I think that was something that I was told is you can't, unless, you know, you hear it from a lot of sources, you can't just assume that everybody is going to behave ethically all the time. Which is, you know, it's surprising coming out of training because they spend so much time making sure that we are aware of the ethical implications of our decisions. But, it was so important that the other people who worked there, people in industry who I spoke to, and friends, or other people in the area who practice ophthalmology, universally said, you know, this is a person who practices ethical ophthalmology and they're extremely fair, and they're extremely straight forward, and it's easy to have a good working relationship with them. All those things were really reassuring and a big part of the reason why this was my top choice.
Polly Neely: Oh, really. All relationships pointed there. And that was good for you and that worked out well.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Yeah, I got really lucky.
You did get lucky. Good for you. I wish you all the best in that. I think that's going to be wonderful and it sounds like you did your homework well and know what you're doing. I have a question for you now. We've been asking people, if you could have lunch with anyone, fictional, real, dead, or alive, who would it be and why?
Dr. Jillian Chong: Oh man. You know, this is going to sound really cheesy ‘cause we've been talking about this the entire time. But my grandmother passed away when I was applying for residency. So, she never got to see me as an ophthalmologist. And I would like to ask her, what was surgery like then? What were your best patient stories? The questions you're asking me, because even if I'd asked her, even if she had told me before it wouldn't have been as a colleague. It would have been as a grandmother telling a dumbed down story to a kid who doesn't really understand. And I know that she sat with my uncle when he was just starting to practice. And they went to the eye bank, and she taught him how to use the Von Graefe Knife even though they were doing extracaps. When my uncle was practicing. But she just wanted to teach him the things she knew. I would've loved to just have a couple of hours with her. Just hearing her stories and learning from her. I would love that.
Polly Neely: That's beautiful. But her legacy lives on in you. So, you create your own stories to be able to hand down to your children one day when they become ophthalmologists.
Dr. Jillian Chong: I'm looking forward to it. My children and grandchildren, generations.
Polly Neely: It's something, right? It doesn't matter, whatever. How has COVID affected your practice there at the university? What all has happened with you guys in 2021? And what out of all of those things that you had to do different and practices that you had to have, what will you take with you and remain the same in 2021?
Dr. Jillian Chong: Oh, that is a fantastic question. So, I started the pandemic as a resident at NYU. So, I was in New York City. My training was very significantly affected by the pandemic. They took us out of the ORs. And they reassigned all of us to do something that could be useful or helpful. A lot of people were on call services. I started off by taking the physicians who were repurposing themselves, who volunteered to work at Bellevue, which is the city hospital, the primary tertiary center of Manhattan, for the underserved. And so, a lot of people volunteered to work at Bellevue. I was in charge of making sure they're onboarded; they got all their testing and paperwork, and everything filled out so that they were able to get their N95's. I did a lot of administrative work, coordinating that for the first few weeks. I did a week on floors at the VA, which just reminded me, how much I love ophthalmology. And you know, how much I've committed so much of my memories of ophthalmology and forgotten a lot of things about medicine. But it was a valuable experience. I'm glad that I was able to participate. Yeah, since coming to the CLINIC, it's been different. I mean, we never got hit quite as hard as New York got hit. So nobody has ever mobilized the floors from ophthalmology here. But we've been really good about our room turnover. I often am cleaning things top to bottom myself, just because I know there's a lot of people working at the same time. But you're never going to be stocked up enough that you can just expect somebody else to clean your room for you, if you want a professional clean. I think cleaning that much, sort of makes me a little uncomfortable about what we were doing beforehand. Cleaning the chair down every single time seemed like overkill at first. But then I was like, you know, it's a different person sitting in this chair every time, and who knows where those pants have been. It's probably not about I need to at least clean the handlebars, so you're going to be touching everything. And I'm definitely going to be taking that sort of deep cleaning philosophy with me. I'm definitely not taking those, the little slit lamp shields. These things are awful. I have like the tiniest PD, I'm a cyclops, and I can't push the slit lamp close enough together to see anything when they're on. I have to take it off every single time. And then when I take it off, I have to apologize to the patient because, in my region they're about as many people who don't believe that. All these things are necessary as people who do. Every single time I have to be like, I'm not taking this off because I don't value your safety, I'm taking it off because I can't see your eye if I leave it on. I just can't see in three dimensions, I'm really sorry. So, I'm definitely not taking that one with me. But I think the deep cleaning protocols, I probably will.
Polly Neely: Yeah. I've heard a lot of different stories about that. I'll always wear my mask no matter what, especially when I'm at the slit lamp because I realize how close I am to somebody.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Yeah.
Polly Neely: Yeah, you know, but I think, we all have learned about the deep cleaning benefits. Because, I think, even with the flu, just the normal flu, I think we could probably save a lot of lives if we had done that in the past just really wiped everything down. Because we're all guilty of working too hard. And if we have a doctor's appointment, we don't want to miss it. And if we're sick, we still go and we still go to work.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Yeah.
Polly Neely: Yeah, I think that's a great, deep cleaning, it was a good thing. I would take that.
Dr. Jillian Chong: I will say like, as much as I hate the masks like there are times after I've had like a big cup of coffee or like some onions at lunch where I'm like, you know, this isn't the worst.
Polly Neely: Yeah, especially when you don't have time to go back and brush your teeth and do mouthwash. You have to keep going, especially with what you're doing, you're just, you're on the run. So, that's pretty good.
Dr. Jillian Chong: That's pretty good. And I can save a fortune on lipstick and half a face of foundation.
Polly Neely: My foundation has lasted a whole year because of this. I'm going through my eye makeup quite a bit, because you really got to make something look good. So, I do that.
So, what has been your most interesting patient that you've encountered in your residency and your fellowship?
Dr. Jillian Chong: Fellowship? Oh, that is a great question. Let's see. I think I've had a series of patients with interesting ulcers. I'm not sure if this counts as my most interesting patient. I guess we've had, interesting, is a broad enough word. I feel like I can put a whole bunch of people in that category and make them the most interesting for really different reasons. Like this, there are patients who have these freak accidents. There are patients who are just like incredibly interesting people then they're the "interesting" patients. But I think the thing I thought was, sort of captured my imagination I guess is just we've had a lot of weird bugs this year. In our ulcers. And it seems like a lot of these bugs are respiratory bugs or oral flora. And it just, I feel like this mask wear, with contact lenses is putting a lot more people at risk of bugs that are unusual. Because, you know, your mouth is full of bacteria. And that's normally okay when you're not blowing your spit all over your contact lenses all the time. Usually they'll say like, oh, everyone's got the story of like this one patient who's cleaning contact lenses off with their tongue or something like that. And that's why they got this weird infection. But now, these weird infections are becoming more and more common. Which hopefully, we don't have to take with us much longer when we can, all be vaccinated and get rid of our masks. So, I guess it's not just one patient, but it's a few. And I find a lot of these patients have a lot more difficulty with a lot more severe pain. Most ulcer patients are also patients in a lot of pain. But it's been one of those experiences where you're like, gosh, this is awful, but it also really makes me appreciate again the value of refractive surgery.
Because it's not just about improving the quality of life for people who want to wake up and see, which on its own is amazing. But, I mean, it's a safety thing for a lot of people who can't function without their contact lenses. You know, there are patients who have to wear them all the time because their coke bottle glasses are impossible to see peripherally because they're just too thick. I mean, these people are sentenced to contact lenses and in a world where weird infections are becoming more common. And refractive surgery of all kinds, could save a lot of vision.
Polly Neely: Very true. I have a question for you. I'm going to give you a scenario. This scenario came to me this week and I want to know how you would answer.
Someone who's 36, and has worn contacts their whole life, or probably since they were 13, but they had glasses before that, wants to have LASIK. What would be your recommendations since they're coming into presbyopia land, very soon?
Dr. Jillian Chong: At 36, a lot of this comes down to good counseling. You know, I see some people in their 40s who have a little bit. But I would usually say, I would not push for anything more monovision for even than a half diopter offset. Just because I want them to have good usable vision. They're still accommodating a lot at 36. I would be inclined to treat them just for Plano in both eyes. But if they're really concerned about it, or if they're not likely to come back for enhancement, or if they have sort of a questionable amount of tissue available, like a PRK for a thin cornea or something like that, then I might consider the half diopter offset just to give them a little bit more time. I think at 36, I probably wouldn't offer much more than that.
Polly Neely: And I think you've been involved in the miLOOP study as well.
Dr. Jillian Chong: I wasn't involved in the study, but I had a little interview about miLOOP. We use miLOOP very liberally in our residency. Because our attending philosophy was, look, you're going to be starting off using a lot of phaco energy, no matter what. Just because you're not comfortable yet. And you can save them a little bit of endothelial damage by learning how to use the miLOOP. And also take a great tool with you then that's a win for everybody. So, at the VA, we miLooped almost all of our first cataracts. Then we had some really interesting patients who would have these incredibly dense cataracts. There's no cortex in that so it just kind of rolls up on you. A lot of times it'll roll up a little bit anyway. And rather than putting it back in the bag and trying to spin it and cut it again, we thought wouldn't it be nice if it's sitting up already? You just kind of loop it like a lasso and cut it into hemis, you already have your first quad out. And it's easier to take. So, we talked a little bit about that in an eye team interview, which is very cool.
Polly Neely: What do you do outside of ophthalmology that brings you enjoyment and how do you spend your time?
Dr. Jillian Chong: There's so much other stuff that I used to do, pre-COVID that I can't do anymore. And stuff that I did pre-medical school that I can't do any more that I would have. I'd love to get back to when I can. Like I used to be a fencer. And I loved fencing. I was a foil fencer, and I was not Olympic quality. But I did local competitions and I went to nationals once. It is a lot of fun. I'd love to get back to that once I'm established again.
I've made incredible friends in training. Residency and fellowship are rigorous. And the hours are rigorous, demands are rigorous. And now I've got one of my best friends in fellowship is this amazing chef. She's inspired me to start cooking again a little bit more. She brought me a pie, like a little ceramic, like pie tin. And so, I've been making pies again. Which, my mom has this amazing pie crust recipe that's passed down from her father who owned a restaurant. I've been making a lot of pie. And fattening all my friends.
Polly Neely: You can send some of those this way, We're okay with that.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Yeah, exactly. And my co-fellow is also an incredible chef. She and her husband are great cooks, so I've gone over there a few times and one of our sites is next to a Costco. And I live alone. But I shop at Costco because it's close by. So, I end up with just this huge surplus of random ingredients. I had like this giant bag of lemons. And I went over to my co-fellow's house with like six lemons and she was like, "What do I do with these?" So, we ended up making soup and some lemon bars. So, I guess creative uses of ingredients. I guess, where we've been, it's like iron chefs, like when they have a secret ingredient, and you have to figure out what to do for an entire meal worth of lemons. We've been doing a little bit of that.
Polly Neely: To remind you to get your mind off eyes and you get to do something fun for a change. I like that.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Exactly, yeah. And it's been great. Plus, you always end up with a little extra so, you know, it never hurts making and keeping friends to leave food around for people.
Polly Neely: Absolutely. Well, this truly my last question. And then I'll let you get to cooking. I know you're just new out, you're in fellowship. You're, you know, you're just doing this. But what technology have you seen, that has impressed you the most, now? And where do you see technology heading, four, five years down the road when you are in your own practice?
Dr. Jillian Chong: So, I am really excited about SMILE. I think that SMILE has a lot of opportunity to be a really premier refractive surgery procedure. I recognize it still has some kinks to work out and there's definitely a learning curve. But I think that for the early 15-year data on stabilities, it’s really exciting. There's some things in the pipeline people have been talking about, irrigating lenticular and stuff like that. I mean, it's a whole new frontier of refractive surgery, and to be already a very technologically forward profession. Where you're at the dawn of a completely new procedure, it’s really exciting. And so, I'm looking forward to seeing where that goes. Yeah, I think I got really excited, and I ended up writing a review article about it before I ever did a case. But I love it. I really think that that's going to be a huge part of the arsenal in the future. It's exciting for a lot of patients with normal corneas, but with really high corrections. I think the stability value of taking deeper stroma is really great. And then, for our campers and our deep-sea divers and our people who are going to be out of the help of an ophthalmologist for long periods of time, who are worried about a flat but don't want to have to go through the healing period of PRK, it's a great option. And it's a really exciting time to be a refractive surgeon.
Polly Neely: Well, I agree with you. And I think that we have so much to look forward to in technology and process on how to do these procedures. Like, you know miLOOP may be old news to some people as far as they used to do the break-up, and cut and chop, then phaco came. Now we're learning that there is still a purpose for this. There's still something that it’s valuable for. I think SMILE has a lot of positives. I think that it's not been utilized, marketed, actually explained, or educated to the patient much like when PRK first came out to educate a patient.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Right.
Polly Neely: I think that, you probably can do that. You have enough enthusiasm. Maybe when you go to this next practice, they're going to let you do it for them. That would be good.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Sure, I hope so.
Polly Neely: Yeah, I think you will. I think you're going to be great. We are going to want to see you in five years and see where you are. I'm going to follow you.
Dr. Jillian Chong: Awesome. I mean, it's such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much.
Focus Through the Generations is supported by Bruder Healthcare Company.
Bruder Healthcare Company is the maker of the #1 Doctor Recommended Moist Heat Eye Compress for the treatment of dry eye (DED), meibomian gland disease (MGD), and blepharitis. For more information about the complete line of Bruder products including the newly introduced Bruder Pre-Surgical Patient Prep Kit, please click here.