NY Times Article on LASIK

There was recently a New York Times article that discussed the risks of LASIK. As a community, ophthalmologists feel that the article did not provide a balanced assessment of LASIK. Certainly, LASIK is not without risks, and there are definitely patients who have long term eye surface problems (often lumped together as “dry eye”) following LASIK. These eye surface problems can be quite painful, as described in the article. However, it is true that the vast majority of patients have significant visual improvement without the long-term discomfort that is described in the article. It does seem to me that the NY Times article was underemphasizing that point and instead acutely focusing on the negative. As of June 2018, I do not offer LASIK (though I think it is a good procedure for correctly selected patients) and instead offer advanced surface ablation, which is associated with fewer long-term complications since no flap is cut during the latter procedure.