When you are due for eye surgery, you know that it’s an important intervention that has it’s risks. It’s therefore smart, to make sure you are doing the right thing and that eye surgery for your case is the right thing to do.
Talking to Previous Patients before Eye Surgery
It’s a good idea to talk to former patients of your eye surgeon who underwent the same procedure as is proposed for you. Your eye surgeon should be ready to provide you with a list of people who had eye surgery and who are ready to talk with you. Naturally, he will only provide you with people who are happy with the outcome of their eye surgery, but they will be able to tell you about their experience. Try to get a list of people who were operated on recently and some that had their eye surgery about a year ago.
Getting A Second Opinion Before Eye Surgery
After a consultation, never feel that you are obligated to use that surgeon and have him perform eye surgery on your eyes . You are completely free to talk to other surgeons as well. And don’t feel that you are offending anyone. It has long been an accepted practice to seek a second opinion before eye surgery, and most doctors would even urge their patients to do so.
After all, these are your eyes and it’s your perfect right to consider all options, before you have a procedure that probaly will help, but does have it’s risks….
Professional Associations For Lasik Eye Surgeons
These professional associations also provide additional information and have certification programs for lasik eye surgeons:
The American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO) does not provide any evaluation specific to refractive eye surgery. Certification is valid for a lifetime, or 10 years if recently certified. ABO certification would be conspicuous by its absence, but not terribly important by its presence.
The American Board of Eye Surgery (ABES) is an ophthalmic group that provides procedure specific certification. They do have peer-reviewed certification for LASIK, and RK, but not PRK, LASEK, CK, LTK or any other refractive procedure. ABES LASIK certification is valid for seven years.
The Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance (CRSQA) is a nonprofit consumer/patient organization that evaluates a surgeon based upon actual patient outcomes. The surgeon and his eye surgery results is reevaluated every three months.