Hi, my name is Tom Mendel. I'm an adult and pediatric retina specialist. I work here at The Ohio State University of Wexner Medical Center in multiple locations, including our New Albany location. I also have the privilege of seeing patients at Nationwide Children's Hospital. When a patient comes to see me, I recognize, especially in retina, it can be pretty scary. And so I spend a lot of time teaching, and I love teaching, and I find that that really helps empower the patients to understand what's going on since you can't look inside your own eye. So every patient who comes to see me first, I kind of explain what's going on. And then armed with that information, we get to make a decision together about what we need to do moving forward and what are the best options. I'm very fortunate in my job and that I love it from start to finish. But it is really special being a retina surgeon because you get to deal with bad disease and make a big difference. And so when I get to see a patient who comes in and they're terrified because something really scary is happening, they have a retinal attachment where they're losing their central vision and they don't know what's going on. I do really enjoy the whole process of explaining exactly how this is happening and what we get to do. And then seeing patients after surgery and seeing them recover dramatically is just really a special thing I feel very, very fortunate to get to be a part of. I went to medical school and Graduate School at the University of Virginia. I then had the privilege of going to Vanderbilt Eye Institute in Nashville, TN where I completed my residency in ophthalmology. After that I went up to the Cole Eye Institute of Cleveland Clinic for a two-year surgical retina fellowship.