Jobs / Healthcare / 29-1241.00
Ophthalmologists, Except Pediatric
Diagnose and perform surgery to treat and help prevent disorders and diseases of the eye. May also provide vision services for treatment including glasses and contacts.
- US jobs
- 8,950
- Median wage
- $300,080 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of ophthalmologists, except pediatric?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Perform comprehensive examinations of the visual system to determine the nature or extent of ocular disorders.
- Diagnose or treat injuries, disorders, or diseases of the eye and eye structures including the cornea, sclera, conjunctiva, or eyelids.
- Provide or direct the provision of postoperative care.
- Develop or implement plans and procedures for ophthalmologic services.
- Prescribe or administer topical or systemic medications to treat ophthalmic conditions and to manage pain.
- Develop treatment plans based on patients' histories and goals, the nature and severity of disorders, and treatment risks and benefits.
- Perform ophthalmic surgeries such as cataract, glaucoma, refractive, corneal, vitro-retinal, eye muscle, or oculoplastic surgeries.
- Educate patients about maintenance and promotion of healthy vision.
- Document or evaluate patients' medical histories.
- Perform, order, or interpret the results of diagnostic or clinical tests.
- Provide ophthalmic consultation to other medical professionals.
- Refer patients for more specialized treatments when conditions exceed the experience, expertise, or scope of practice of practitioner.
Other job titles for this occupation (16)
Clinical Ophthalmologist · Cornea Specialist · Glaucoma Specialist · Oculoplastic Specialist · Ophthalmic Surgeon · Ophthalmologist · Ophthalmologist Specialist · Physician · Retina Specialist · Surgical Ophthalmologist · Cornea and External Disease Physician · Medical Doctor (MD) · Neuro-Ophthalmologist · Ophthalmology Physician · Refractive Surgeon · Vitreoretinal Disease Physician