For an impeccably-credentialled LASIK surgeon to say the surgery was successful because the patient has good visual acuity is dishonest. Ellin describes the false success of good visual acuity. If it cannot get a staff person to reply to my Freedom of Information Act request concerning the LadarVision recall in seven months, how can we expect it to get an investigator to do something meaningful in timely fashion.įinally, Ms. But expecting the FDA to police the LASIK industry is like waiting for the Cubs to win the pennant. If it is not well-manufactured, like the Alcon Ladarvision 4000, and enough bad things happen, it may be recalled by the FDA. If the doctor uses it in a way in which the FDA and manufacturer did not intend it, bad things will happen. If it is not properly calibrated by the laser facility pre-operatively, bad things will happen.
One doctor in the metropolitan New York region has repeatedly spent over $1 million in advertising his LASIK services, been sued and paid upwards of two dozen patients for his alleged malpractice, and continues to practice with seeming impunity from his colleagues and licensing regulators. At the same time, I’ve yet to have a case where a doctor who had an obligation to repeat a bad result, or unexpected outcome, ever did. The industry makes it difficult to prove these cases of presumptive malpractice by intimidating colleagues from testifying against one another, and by retaliating against those that do.
However, when it happens, most often, it is due to the surgeon’s malpractice. Other cases are time bombs with a long fuse, which can take as long as five years to explode (well after New York’s 2.5 year statute of limitation for medical malpractice will likely have expired). I had on client’s vision devolve to legally blind, 20/200, in about 2 weeks. The post-LASIK ectasia is an avoidable, surgically-induced thinning of the cornea, which causes severe problems with visual quality: blurring, double vision, halos, glare, star-bursting, ghosting, photosensitivity and impaired night vision. The industry, whose numbers I am inherently skeptical about, claims the incidence of post-LASIK ectasia is less than 1%. Most errors occur in the screening with the doctors who are too busy running the conveyor belt to notice warning signs of unsuitable LASIK candidates. I represent patients with bad LASIK outcomes nationwide. A corneal or refractive surgeon can schedule ten patients in 15-minute blocks, and at $5,000 per patient, generate $50,000 of revenue in just 2.5 hours. The application of the surgical laser to the cornea actually takes less than 60 seconds. I’m mad at myself.” She thinks she succumbed to her vanity. Ellin confesses, “I’m not mad at my doctor. It was a sad but refreshing counterbalance to the LASIK industry’s infomercials that pass as news in other publications.
I read Abby Ellin’s biographical piece about her own LASIK eye surgery misfortune with keen interest.
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