Drs. Stefan de Geus

Trust is important

“Vision is important for everyone. If I can do something about it, that would be super cool.” Stefan de Geus became an ophthalmologist mainly to help people and because he likes to combine technology with logical reasoning. “You see what is going on, you make a plan and you execute that plan yourself, often through beautiful operations where the risks with current techniques are actually very low. That is what I like about this profession.”

Career

After half a year of physics, Stefan switched to studying medicine in Leiden, specialized in Nijmegen as an ophthalmologist and then did a fellowship in retinal surgery. He then started working in the hospital where he gained experience in general ophthalmology, cataract surgery, retinal surgery and retinal treatments of premature babies. He now works at the RadboudUMC, at the Retina Operation Center (Eyescan) and at FYEO.

Concrete information

Stefan believes it is important to properly assess the results of a treatment in advance and to evaluate them afterwards. “Fortunately, an eye provides concrete information. You can clearly see what is going on. In healthy eyes, variations are large and assessments are sometimes complex. Providing understandable explanations about this is an art and at the same time a fun challenge.”

Learning new things

At FYEO, Stefan does all the treatments: “Lens replacement is similar to cataract treatment in the hospital, but here we use different methods, techniques and lenses. I learned laser treatments of the cornea from scratch at FYEO. And that’s good, because working across the full breadth of the profession is important to give clients the best advice and is both varied and challenging. There are many ways to improve someone’s vision, and I always strive for the best possible result for the client, just like the entire team at FYEO.”

“I think it is important to be honest about expectations”

One day Stefan performs operations, the other day he receives clients in consultation hours. During these appointments, the options and what the treatment and recovery will look like are discussed with the client. “I also think it is important to be honest about the expectations of a treatment. If there are multiple treatment options, I discuss the pros and cons in order to arrive at a joint choice. Mutual trust is essential.”