Duke Medical Minutes are produced by local sports radio affiliates, and allow Duke specialists to give a brief snapshot into health offerings at Duke.

In this episode, Terry Kim, MD, discusses the importance of eye exams and wearing protective eye wear when playing sports to prevent eye injury.

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: We're talking to Dr. Terry Kim, professor of ophthalmology and associate director of cornea and refractive surgery at Duke Eye Center.

We've got a lot of weekend warriors or parents that have kids who play a lot of sports. We always hear about ACLs, shoulders -- we never talk about eyes.

Kim: That's right, I think it's underestimated how important eye care is. You know, people usually don't realize the importance of their eyes until something happens to them -- whether it's an eye disease or an eye injury.

So, we always stress the importance of having an eye exam. But even in the healthy athlete, they should get an eye exam to make sure that, number one, they're seeing the best that they can be seeing and also to make sure that the eyes are healthy.

I think another important part of that, especially if you're playing sports, is protective eye wear. I think you see out there, whether you're looking at professional baseball players or basketball players, some of them do wear protective eye wear.

But the importance of this is underestimated -- especially for kids out there who are playing sports. I think it's important for them to come in for their screening exam and, if appropriate, wearing the protective eye wear to protect against injury.