Education and training of referring physicians decreases at-home call demand.

Background: Excessive, sometimes unnecessary consultation challenges the ophthalmology resident's ability to obtain adequate rest and personal time while taking at-home calls. Basic training of nonophthalmologists in assessing and treating common ophthalmic emergencies offers a potential solution to this problem by providing primary caregivers the knowledge base, tools, and confidence to manage them independently.

Objective: We measured ophthalmic consultation requests at a large teaching institution and the impact of an educational intervention on the number and type of requests.