Beyond the Walls: Risks, reinvention, and redefining the patient experience with Alison D. Early, MD

In this latest episode of the Ophthalmology Times® “Beyond the Walls” podcast, host Deborah Ristvedt, DO, sits down with Alison D. Early, MD, a cataract and refractive surgeon, innovator, and entrepreneur at Signature Cataract and Laser Consultants in Cincinnati, Ohio, to explore the personal turning point that led Early to step away from the security of a large multispecialty practice and build a practice of her own.

The conversation covers the galvanizing patient encounter that changed Early’s trajectory, her philosophy of human-centered care, and her advice to surgeons navigating the early stages of their careers.

The person behind the practice

Early describes herself as a second child, oldest daughter, and self-described people pleaser—a trait she has had to examine critically as she has stepped into entrepreneurial and leadership roles. The drive to accommodate others, she reflects, is a quality that serves well in some contexts but requires deliberate recalibration when you are the one setting the vision and making the hard calls.

Outside the clinic, she is a self-professed Bravo TV fan and lifelong learner, a quality she considers essential to both medicine and entrepreneurship. Wearing many hats—surgeon, entrepreneur, mentor, and mom—brings with it a constant undercurrent of self-questioning that Ristvedt names directly: “Am I doing enough? Am I present enough? It is a tension many physicians will recognize.”

The moment that changed everything

The turning point for Early came during an otherwise ordinary clinic day. A glaucoma follow-up patient who had waited over an hour expressed frustration. “There is a patient out there who completely changed the trajectory of my career,” she says. Days later, still thinking about it, she made her decision: “There’s got to be a different way. I do not think that I have to go through every clinic just waiting for that patient who’s going to be the one that’s upset.” That encounter became the catalyst for leaving her large practice and committing to building a model of care delivery on her own terms.

Human-centered care and the doctor-patient divide

A recurring theme in the episode is Early’s belief that medicine has drifted too far from genuine human connection. She finds the most fulfillment in the moments between clinical tasks—learning a patient’s story, discovering a shared connection, or simply being present with another person. She pushes back against what she sees as an unnecessary cultural separation between physicians and patients, pointing to social media posts where doctors debate whether it is appropriate to greet a patient in a grocery store. “They’re just another person,” she says. Ristvedt echoes the sentiment, noting that patients are arriving more guarded and that it falls to physicians to make the encounter meaningful, whatever else is happening in that patient’s day.

Advice for the next generation

For surgeons finishing training, Early offers practical and hard-won guidance: have a lawyer review any contract before signing. What feels like an expense in the moment will save significant time and money down the road. Beyond contracts, she emphasizes the value of mentorship—crediting colleagues who were generous with their wisdom at every stage of her own journey—and commits to passing that forward. Ristvedt and Early close by reflecting on seasons of life, the courage it takes to believe something better is possible, and the importance of bringing the human side back to why most physicians went into medicine in the first place.