24 Trial Lawyer • Fall 2023 Greg Zeuthen By Greg Zeuthen OTLA Guardian In December 1999, Brenda Ross called my office because she was dissatisfied with her recent LASIK (Laser-Assisted in Situ Keratomileusis) eye surgery. She was told she was an excellent candidate and promised immediate visual improvement. This turned out not to be the case. In the weeks following her surgery, Ross had several similar post-operative visits. As soon as she arrived at the crowded clinic, she was quickly and quietly ushered to an exam room, seen by the surgeon who was at a loss to explain the poor outcome, then escorted out the clinic through a side door so she did not interact with the other patients in the lobby. She was being slow played by the surgeon. Ross was suspicious and called me and my good friend and colleague, Larry Baron, to investigate her case. I did not understand until much later that the course of my professional career changed when Ross retained me. I look back at that late fall day as the point I began a 23-year journey of representing deserving clients who suffered various eye injuries due to the negligence of clinics, doctors and eye care professionals. How the eye functions The cornea and the lens of the eye focus light like a camera lens to form an image on the retina at the back of the eye. The light first enters the front of the eye through the cornea, which provides approximately 70% of the eye’s focusing power. The lens inside the eye works with the cornea to provide the remaining 30% of the focusing power. Some eyes focus light so that the images of distant objects are formed in front of the retina. The result is the image is blurred. This condition is called nearsightedness or myopia. Myopia usually starts in childhood and gets progressively worse through adolescence. In astigmatism, the image is not evenly focused to a single point in front of the retina, but the light rays are divided and focus along separate orientations on the retina. In the astigmatic eye, the image is blurred. In farsightedness, the image focuses beyond the retina. As we age, our eyes become less able to focus or accommodate as the natural lens in the eye hardens. For this reason, farsightedness most commonly becomes a problem later in life. Refractive surgery The common types of refractive surgery involve reshaping the cornea to correct nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. By far, LASIK is the most popular type of refractive surgery. LASIK surgery was extensively marketed in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a “guaranteed safe procedure” with promises that one could “throw away contacts and glasses forever.” LASIK involves creating a flap in the cornea and reshaping the underlying tissue by using an excimer laser to ablate (burn away) corneal tissue. The cost of LASIK surgery dropped dramatically from $3,000 to as little $795 an eye. Radio, television and newsprint advertisements targeted audiences primarily promoting the cosmetic benefits and the improvement in visual acuity. In many ways the early marketing of LASIK eye surgery was akin to hawking a product or consumer good, rather than the practice of medicine. Statistically, LASIK was a safe procedure for the right patient and in the hands of a good ophthalmologist, but complications or improper technique could result in permanent vision losses. In those early cases, most injuries occurred for three reasons. First, LASIK THE ALPHABET SOUP OF VISION MALPRACTICE
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