I have some macular edema in my right eye.

So today my ophthalmologist referred me to a retina specialist, whom I'll see on Thursday.

I can see why ophthalmologists earn such high status, considering that the human mind often metaphorically equates sight with wisdom and understanding, and blindness with ignorance or stupidity. The man who can restore or at least preserve the functioning of human eyes damaged by injury or disease has something nearly mythological going for him.

Didn't Jesus restore sight to the blind in the gospels, for example?

We also respect dentists as competent and necessary professionals, but something about the presence or absence of teeth just doesn't carry the same emotional weight as the presence or absence of vision. (I don't recall any dental miracles in the gospels.)

If medicine ever advances to the point where revival specialists in Future World can restore cryopreserved or plastinated human brains into functioning people, I hope that they will also attain high status for partaking in the mythological powers shared to a lesser extent by ophthalmologists.