Dr Cronin Does Not See Dry Eyes

Patients are sometimes surprised when they call to book a consultation for dry eye and are told that I don’t run a dry eye clinic. It’s a fair point of confusion, so let me explain why — and, more importantly, why this is good news for anyone in Brisbane living with dry, gritty, irritated eyes. I’m a surgeon, and dry eye is not a surgical problem My subspecialty is the cornea. I spend my days doing keratoconus treatment, corneal transplants, CAIRS, refractive surgery like LASIK, SMILE and PRK, ICL implantation, cataract surgery and pterygium removal. That’s what I trained for, and it’s where I can make the biggest difference for patients.

Dry eye disease is different. It’s a chronic, medical condition that rewards patience, careful ongoing management and the right diagnostic equipment far more than it rewards a scalpel. Managing dry eye well means repeat assessments, tailoring treatment over time, and knowing exactly which of the many overlapping causes is driving a particular patient’s symptoms. It is genuinely its own discipline.

So when it comes to dry eye, the honest answer is that a corneal surgeon is not the right person for the job. The right people are the clinicians who do this every single day.

QEI runs a dedicated dry eye clinic — and it’s world class The good news is that Queensland Eye Institute has a dedicated dry eye clinic staffed by highly experienced optometrists who focus specifically on ocular surface disease. This is not dry eye treated as an afterthought between other appointments — it’s a purpose-built service with the time, expertise and technology to get to the bottom of stubborn, long-standing dry eye.

The clinic is equipped with the kind of technology that most practices simply don’t have, including:

IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) — a proven, evidence-based treatment for meibomian gland dysfunction, the most common underlying cause of evaporative dry eye. IPL helps address the inflammation and gland blockage at the source rather than just chasing symptoms with drops. Rexon-Eye — a quantum molecular resonance device that treats dry eye at the level of the tear-producing tissues, helping to restore normal function for patients who haven’t responded well to more conventional therapies.

Combined with careful clinical assessment, these tools let the optometry team build a genuine, targeted treatment plan rather than sending everyone home with the same bottle of artificial tears.

The best of both worlds None of this means dry eye and surgery live in separate worlds. Ocular surface health matters enormously before any corneal or cataract procedure — a healthy tear film gives sharper measurements, better outcomes and a smoother recovery. So the optometry-led dry eye clinic and my surgical practice work hand in hand. Patients move seamlessly between the two when they need to, and when a surgical issue is identified, it’s dealt with by the right person.

So if you have dry eyes If your eyes feel dry, gritty, watery, burning or tired, you’re in excellent hands at QEI — just not necessarily mine. The dry eye clinic and its optometry team are the people you want, backed by world-class equipment and a genuine subspecialty focus. I’m always happy to be involved where surgery is genuinely part of the answer, but for dry eye itself, our optometry team offers a service I’d send my own family to.