Professor Lawrence Hirst saved my left eye.

Provider Review

• 30 Jan 2017

I am from Canada. About eight years ago, I was diagnosed with pterygium inmy left eye. My first Canadian opthalmologist (eye surgeon) right away performed the first pterygium surgery in my left eye. Unfortunately, after seven years, the pterygium in my left eye retuned. Due to my first opthalmologist retirement, a different Canadian eye surgeon performed my second pterygium surgery, which took place in June 2015. Sadly, six months after the second surgery, pterygium again returned to my left eye, and I had to go for another surgery (the third surgery), which took place in mid December 2015 and resulted in the return of pterygium to my left eye within two weeks after surgery & also caused eye infection. Prior to my third left eye pterygium surgery, I assumed pterygium was just a minor disease in the eyes that could be removed easily by minor surgery, usually takes about 30 minutes. However, after three unsuccessfully surgeries in Canada, and noticing that the pterygium in my left eye seemed to be more aggressive in term of returning faster and being more severe as more surgeries were performed, I began to consider pterygium was a serious disease & thereby wanted to look for an eye doctor somewhere in the world that would be the best in pterygium surgery. The reason I wanted to look for the best pterygium eye doctor in the world was that as advanced as Canada in term of medical services, my pterygium in the left eye could not be removed permanently. This disease must be therefore complicated & difficult to treat. From searching the internet & reading online patient reviews, I found a couple pterygium specialists that were considered the best in their field. I believed two were from the USA, one from India, and Professor Lawrence Hirst from Australia. I decided to go with Professor Lawrence Hirst because he was a full time Pterygium dedicated eye doctor. He did not treat any other eye disease. Second, which was critical for my decision, Professor L Hirst developed his own pterygium surgery technique called P.E.R.F.E.C.T. Basically, this technique was developed by Professor Hirst after many years of pterygium surgery that entails cutting the pterygium deeper & wider. Also, Professor Lawrence Hirst had been trained and worked for a while at the Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. This eye institute is considered one of the best eye hospitals in the world. I contacted Professor Lawrence Hirst in about March 2016 enquiring whether he would accept me as his patient. His office replied that he was on vacation in India and that he would reply to my email upon his return. To my suprise, Professor Lawrence Hirst replied to my email the next day while he was still on vacation. He replied that he would take me as his patient & asked that I emailed him a couple good pictures of my left eye, so that I would not have to travel to Australia for the pre-surgery examination. After viewing my left eye pictures & subsequent to a couple more email exchanges, I came to Brisbance, Australia on Tuesday, July 19, 2016, and before surgery, I saw Professor Hirst on Wednesday, July 21, 2016 in his office. Professor L Hirst was a very nice & professional. He was also mild in manner, polite, & caring. He saw me in his office & explained to me the conditions of my left eye pterygium, and the details surgery plan that he had for me. His staff was also very nice, helpful, and very professional. They were very pleasant & asked if they could help me in any way to make my stay in Australia easy. My fourth pterygium surgery, which was performed by Professor Lawrence Hirst, took place on Monday, July 25, 2016 in Queensland hospital, Brisbane, Australia. The hospital was very clean, very well equipped, & the staff was super professional & pleasant. Before surgery, a register nurse saw me, asked me a few questions, explaned to me what the surgery would entail, & enquired if I would be ok for the surgery. Then, an anesthetist also saw me, asked me a few questions, & explained to me what he was going to do for me interm of the surgery & took me to the surgical room. The surgery took about two hours rather than about one hour usually by Dr. Hirst because my left eye pterygium was in quite an advanced stage because of three previous unsuccessful surgeries; it was completed right before I woke up. The nurses then took me to a monitor area & kept me there for about 30 minutes to ensure that I would be ok before letting me go home. Professor Hirst saw me one day after my surgery. He also saw me every week for three weeks before I went back to Canada. He also provided me with his direct telephone number during my stay in Australia to call whenever I needed to talk to him after surgery. I returned to Canada about the third week of August 2016. During the first three months of my return, Proferssor Hirst followed up with my Canadian eye doctoc to help monitor and ensure that my eye would be healed & taken care properly. During this period, Professor Hirst also asked me to send my left eye pictures for his examination, and he followed up with phone calls to me to ensure that I would be ok. So far, about six months after my surgery, there is no sign of pterygium returning to my left eye. Amazingly the physical appearance of my left eye looks very good right now because a person would not be able to tell that I had pterygium surgery in my left eye if I do not tell him/her.