28 months ago
The key to safe surgery in any field of medicine is an informed patient. Take time to research the LASIK center you are considering for surgery.
I suggest the following guidelines to quality care and treatment:
- Find a surgeon by getting referrals from other doctors or from patients who have had laser vision correction
- Don’t be fooled by fancy advertisements about a particular laser center. Choose the doctor, not the laser center. Find out who will actually do the procedure, then ask about that doctor’s qualifications (e.g., board certification, special training)
- Choose a doctor who has done at least 10,000 LASIK surgeries. What a doctor doesn’t know can hurt you
- Ask for information on your doctor’s complication rates during surgery. If your doctor won’t tell you, find another one. For top surgeons, the figure is under 1 in 1,000
- Ask what measures are taken to prevent infection. Look for a center with a sterile operating room. If the surgeon is operating in street clothes or not wearing gloves, go elsewhere. Insist that your eye be thoroughly sterilized with surgical prep solution
- Beware of advertisements pushing “low cost” surgery. Discount surgery is like a discount parachute
- If you feel like you’re getting a hard sell, you probably are. Go elsewhere. You’re not buying a car – this is real surgery
- While you investigate, don’t lose sight of the benefits: for most people a lifetime of bad vision can be cured in 5 minutes. LASIK surgery has improved the eyesight of millions of people around the world
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