Chuck: A good place to go to request from patients who’ve
had LASIK is the News group alt.lasik-eyes (If you don’t know how to
access News groups through the Internet, let me know off line and I’ll
share with you how to do this.)
You may also want to go to http://www.goodeyedoc.com and click on the
“Ask Dr. Conger” button. Dr. Conger has a lot of useful information
about LASIK on his site and he answers questions free of charge
through e-mail at the “Ask Dr. Conger” page. You can also see his
actual LASIK surgery results on his site. Many LASIK surgeons don’t
do this because they don’t all have such good results to report.
In any case you should ask for a report of LASIK results from the
ophthalmologist you are considering. This will tell you how many
LASIK procedures s/he has done and whether they were successful or
not. These reports don’t give out identifying the
patient, but tell you what the patient’s vision was before and after
the procedure and whether there were any complications.
As an individual who spent 8 years managing the team that checks the
credentials of health care providers at the oldest and largest
cooperative health care organization in the US, I am very careful to
check the credentials and quality assurance records of any health care
provider that will be treating me and I will not go to a provider who
won’t give me access to her/his results.
Best regards,
Elizabeth Paulsen