A program for preventive ophthalmology in Israel: possible implications for prevention units in other specialized branches of clinical medicine.

A program is proposed for a prevention unit in ophthalmology in a medical school situated in a technologically developed country where degenerative diseases play a major role in the etiology of eye disease. The relationship of such a unit to the corresponding curative departments, to the departments of social medicine and medical ecology, to the Ministry of Health and to the corresponding professional body are described. The role such a unit may have as a forerunner of the formation of similar units in other specialities of medicine is emphasized.