Eyeworld

89 EW IN OTHER NEWS by Liz Hillman EyeWorld Staff Writer New Jersey-based doctor pokes fun at patients and his own profession in comedic hobby B ernie Spier, MD, Northern New Jersey Eye Institute, South Orange, New Jersey, stands on a stage. He's not in a suit and tie or even a white coat. He's wearing a casual sweater and jeans. This is not a clini- cal presentation that fellow ophthal- mologists or patients might expect from the doctor. "Patients ask me, 'Doc, how are you going to do my LASIK?' I could tell them I'm going to carve your eyeball out of your head, I'm going to slap it down on a cutting board, I'm going to chop it into a million little pieces, crush it into a pulp, and stuff it back into your skull. As long as I tell them it's done by a laser, they're like, 'Sign me up,'" Dr. Spier said, serving up the punch line in his New Jersey accent. The crowd seated in front of Dr. Spier at the club Stand Up New York in Manhattan erupts into laughter. Dr. Spier is "a tall, single, dev- astatingly handsome ophthalmolo- gist," as he put it in his routine the day before Valentine's Day, pausing a moment for effect. "At least that's what my 90-year-old blind patients May 2016 Ophthalmologist during the week, comedian on the weekend Dr. Spier draws from his experience as a physician to craft jokes that poke fun at his own career as he pursues a stand-up comedy hobby. continued on page 90 Dr. Spier with a patient and staff. Source (all): Bernie Spier, MD tell me before I take out their cata- racts." Dr. Spier said his interest in comedy has always been there. "Even in grammar school and high school, I wasn't the class clown, but I was making the kids who were around me laugh," he said. Although he had incorporated humor into some of his medical presentations before, a couple of years ago he took his interest to the next level and attended a stand- up comedy class. At the end of the class, students performed at an actu- al Manhattan comedy club. "It was terrifying. The first 2 times, I almost didn't make it. I was literally on the verge of throwing up, I was so nervous," Dr. Spier said. But thinking about what he does everyday in the operating room—performing advanced sur- gical procedures that could perma- nently impact a person's eyesight for the better or for the worse—is what got him in the door. "That's what got me to the club. That exact thought, which is I could blind people every day. The worst

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