The Irreducible Encounter: Human Skills, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Ophthalmic Care

Despite this, discussion and research into emotional and interpersonal dimensions of ophthalmic care remain conspicuously underresourced, with the field's imagination preferentially and perhaps understandably captured by pharmacological and technological advances such as in artificial intelligence (AI).Of course, the achievements of AI are highly impressive, across all fields of diagnosis, screening, grading, and prognostication [3,4].Indeed, the question is no longer about whether AI can replicate clinical judgment, but whether anything at all in the human encounter should be irreducible and protected from algorithmic decomposition.This is less a question about what AI could replace, and more about what it should not.One response to that question might be considered alongside our recent publication in this journal proposing Post-Visual Diagnosis Distress (PVDD) as a descriptive framework for early, diagnosis-linked emotional responses [5].PVDD is not a psychiatric diagnosis but a construct drawing on evidence from age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and other chronic eye diseases, and informed by ophthalmology, psychiatry, counseling, patient advocacy, and public health.It legitimizes patient experience, opens space for empathetic dialogue, and enables timely recognition when distress crosses into something requiring more structured support.Its introduction reflects a broader emphasis