After the FDA approved LASIK eye surgery in 1998, it became very popular and was marketed as a miraculous, vision-enhancing procedure.

How the eye works

The human eye functions much like a camera. Light enters the front of the eye, reflected off objects in the field of vision. It travels through the clear front part of the eye (the cornea), which is round in shape. This roundness refracts the light rays (bends them) so they turn towards the retina. The retina is the back inside surface of the eyeball, and functions like the film in a camera.

As the light rays travel through the interior of the eyeball, they pass through the crystalline lens. This is a small oval-shaped, translucent structure which again bends the light rays. In normal eyesight, these light rays now land exactly on the retina and give us a clear image of the objects they were originally reflected from, such as the street in front of our house, our car parked there, the people walking by, etc.

How LASIK is done

There are three types of vision impairment that LASIK treats. Many people are nearsighted, because the cornea is too flat, causing the light rays from distant objects to land behind the retina. Others are farsighted, with a cornea that's too steep, causing light rays from near objects to land in front of the retina. And many people have some degree of astigmatism, meaning that the cornea is oval-shaped, rather than round, with two curvatures, so that light rays are bent in two ways. In all cases, the result is blurry vision.

LASIK is a procedure to alter the curvature of the cornea, so that light rays will be bent correctly and will land exactly on the retina. It is done by cutting a thin flap of tissue on the cornea's surface and bending it back like opening a door. Then the laser is used to precisely remove tiny pieces of corneal tissue, according to exact type and degree of the person's vision impairment. The flap is then replaced and heals up by itself.

Not everyone is a good candidate for LASIK

Most of the time, it's done well and gives excellent results. However, one of the important parts of its success is performing it only on good candidates.

The LASIK boom caused some eye doctors to rush into offering it before they were fully trained, and without any previous experience doing it. Some of them ran their LASIK clinics like factories.

By advertising low prices, some clinics pulled in multitudes of people, processed them quickly to make room for the next lot, and to make a profit despite the low prices, cut some corners.

Pre-screening was brief or non-existent, and some people received LASIK treatment who should not have, because they had eye conditions or other health conditions that made it too risky. If this happened to you, contact a medical malpractice lawyer, because you may have a valid basis for a medical malpractice lawsuit.

LASIK flap problems

With a poor LASIK candidate, cutting the corneal flap is a riskier procedure. In the earlier days of LASIK procedures, this flap was cut with a tool called a microkeratome, which had an oscillating metal blade. If the person had thinner corneas than average (and should therefore not have been receiving LASIK at that time), sometimes the cutting for the flap went too deeply into the eye tissue. This weakened the cornea and made it bulge, so that the person needed to wear rigid contact lenses to contain it. There was no way to undo this damage.

Improper medical conditions

Many other risks are taken as well, and patients were not necessarily well-informed about them ahead of time, which could create a basis for a medical malpractice suit.

Vision-impairing side effects of LASIK can include:

• Loss of lines of vision on a vision chart
• Glare
• Halos
• Double vision
• Severe dry eye syndrome

In addition, medically unacceptable risks were sometimes taken, and proper medical protocol ignored. For example, in LASIK centers where large numbers of patients was the goal, instruments may not always be properly sterilized afresh for each patient. Sometimes the microkeratome blade was not sharp enough to be precise. This delicate surgery was done in a hurry at times, or with inadequate support staffing, or on people who should not have been selected as LASIK candidates. These things could all form a valid basis for a medical malpractice claim.

If your vision was damaged by a LASIK procedure, you could be entitled to some compensation.

Frequently Asked Medical malpractice Questions

Hiring a medical malpractice attorney could be the best thing you could do for yourself, if your vision has been harmed by a poorly-done LASIK procedure. Contact Illinois medical malpractice attorney Barry Doyle for your free legal consultation. No recovery, no fee.

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