Best LASIK Surgeons Have Experience By William Goldstein on July 14, 2016

If you’re thinking of getting LASIK surgery, there are many things that you have to take into 

consideration. What type of surgery would fit your needs? Which eye, or both? What does 

your recovery period look like? What are the possible complications for the surgery? And, 

perhaps, most importantly, exactly how experienced is your surgeon? The best lasik surgeons have experience with surgery and it's complications.

 

This last question is probably the most significant consideration you will have while thinking 

about LASIK, because every other question ends up depending on the answer to this 

question. 

 

Surgeon experience is vital to LASIK, because though it’s a short surgery, it requires an 

inordinate amount of skill. Moreover, the stakes for a LASIK surgeon are quite high—if they 

make a mistake, their patient could end up blind. So, with all these facts, surgeon experience 

can end up significantly impacting your LASIK surgery and recovery time.

 

How? Well, read on to find out.

 

 

If you’re having your surgery performed by an inexperienced surgeon who is not under the 

supervision of a more experienced one, you may end up having to deal with complications. 

LASIK procedures, especially procedures that still use blades to create the flap, require a lot 

of precision. 

 

An inexperienced surgeon working solo might make mistakes with cutting the corneal flap. 

However, an experienced surgeon, or even an inexperienced surgeon working with an 

experienced one, will know what to look out for, improving your chances of emerging from 

the surgery with less complications. 

 

 

If you’ve had surgery performed by an inexperienced surgeon and are suffering from 

complications that occurred during the procedure, then your recovery time could end up 

being much longer than you anticipated. 

 

If it’s a simple issue, like flap realignment, you could be looking at an extra two or three 

weeks of recovery. For more serious complications like blindness, you might have to deal 

with recovery as well as therapy to compensate for the disability. Having an experienced 

surgeon perform the procedure ensures that you have the shortest recovery time possible. 

 

 

Okay, so now that you have two very good reasons why you should choose a lasik surgeon with 

experience, you might be wondering about what constitutes experience in this case. 

Well, your surgeon should have completed their undergraduate studies, medical school, five 

years in an ophthalmology residency program, preferably with laser surgery experience during that training period, 

and should have undergone a LASIK-specific curriculum from an affiliated institute or 

program.