Patient's 'Quick Question' After Eye Exam Turns Into 45-Minute Interrogation About Floaters

A patient's casual 'quick question before I go' at the conclusion of a routine eye examination expanded into a 45-minute interrogation about vitreous floaters that optometrist Dr. Iris Diopter has described as 'the most thorough cross-examination I have faced outside of a malpractice hearing.' Patient Edward Floater, 56, produced a stack of eighteen index cards from his jacket pocket after Dr. Diopter had completed his examination and begun writing the prescription. 'Just a few things I've been meaning to ask,' he said, before placing the cards on the desk in an order he described as 'ascending severity.' Card one read: 'Are floaters alive?' Dr. Diopter confirmed they are not. Card two read: 'Then what are they?' Dr. Diopter explained that they are collagen fibers in the vitreous humor casting shadows on the retina. Card three read: 'Is the vitreous humor actually humorous?' Dr. Diopter said it is not. Subsequent cards covered topics including: 'Can floaters merge and form larger floaters?', 'Do floaters have names in the medical literature?', 'If I move my eyes very fast, can I outrun them?', and 'My wife says I'm imagining them — is she correct and if so please put it in writing.' Dr. Diopter answered each question with what she describes as 'clinical patience and a growing awareness that my next patient was waiting.' The final card, labeled 'URGENT,' read: 'I have named my largest floater Gerald. Is this normal?' 'I told him that naming floaters is not clinically documented behavior, but that it's also not harmful,' Dr. Diopter said. 'He seemed relieved. He asked if I wanted to see a drawing of Gerald. I said yes, because at that point we were forty-five minutes in and I felt invested.' The drawing depicted a shape that Mr. Floater described as 'a melancholy tadpole.' Dr. Diopter has filed it in his patient notes.