Nerdy Optometrist

Nerdy Optometrist is a guest-led podcast about optometry as a clinical craft, a business and a career. The show description credits Ukti Vora, an optometrist, with starting the channel, and the episodes here are conversations between the host and a guest. What makes these episodes worth hearing is how far they range. Dr. Glenda Aleman's episode stays close to the exam chair and takes up what parents and eye care professionals misunderstand about myopia. Its strongest thread is emotional rather than technical. Children are sensitive, one word can land hard, and a prescription for glasses can carry real stigma. Parents feel it too, with a guilt that sometimes eases once genetics comes into the discussion. That conversation even ends by admitting how hard it was to get recorded. Eugene Shatsman's episode moves to the front desk and the search bar. Its argument is that AI now gives people customized answers that feel personal and get trusted, even though they are often inaccurate. The practical advice is small and concrete: search the practice name and see whether the listing has a 'book now' button through Google Reserve. AI is the subject that keeps coming back. The Dr. Rehan Ahmed conversation gives it three roles, assistant, agent and superpower, and uses diabetic screening at scale as its example of an agent. The same episode praises Topcon's 'healthcare from the eye' initiative and argues that optometrists also work as primary care providers. The Colton Calandrella episode describes automation as an almost invisible extra team member that chases the rejected claims many practices never follow up. One line from it sums up the mood: 'a practice that does not use AI will definitely be replaced by a practice that does.' It also mentions AI Guidelines built from the American Optometric Association's clinical guidelines, followed by a promotional stretch about how quickly practices can move onto the Bardi EHR. Dr. Gopinath Madeswaran's episode is a career story about building a business that cleans and analyzes data for researchers. It covers months spent promoting without a single client, and when the awkwardness of talking about money comes up, the answer offered is to sell packages. A separate episode, billed as a book review, was a Facebook live with the author Dr. Jameel Rizwana Husaindeen. The host introduces her warmly and at length, and they agree she will be called 'Riz' rather than 'ma'am'. Many of the conversations end the same way: thanks, a pointer to the guest's LinkedIn, and a welcome to the Nerdy family.