Eyeworld

36 March 2018 EW NEWS & OPINION Chief medical editor's corner of the world by Eric Donnenfeld, MD, EyeWorld chief medical editor Leadership and respect Mr. Karcher and Dr. Donnenfeld Source (all): Eric Donnenfeld, MD Dr. Donnenfeld and Mr. Karcher on a golf outing with Edward Holland, MD, and Richard Lewis, MD I n many respects 1981 was a very good year. On the world stage, the social event of the year was the royal wedding of Lady Diana Spencer to Prince Charles, and Ronald Reagan became president of the U.S. The highest grossing film of the year was Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Many technological advances oc- curred that year, with the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia being among the most notable. This was also the first year that the internet was described. In our field in 1981, intracapsular cataract surgery was the most common form of cataract removal, and radial keratotomy was the preferred refractive procedure. Much has changed since then, but for ophthalmology there has T his year marks the 30th anniversary of LVC. Marguerite McDonald, MD, recalled, "On Friday, March 25, 1988, at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Eye Center in New Orleans, I had the honor of performing the first laser vision correction procedure in the world—a PRK— on a living human subject, Alberta Cassady. My research colleagues were Stephen Trokel, MD, and Charles Munnerlyn, PhD." Dr. McDonald described the milestones leading up to that day. "Starting in 1984, we did thousands of plastic test blocks, cadaver animal and human eyes, living rabbit eyes, then living monkey eyes. Mrs. Cassady was a 62-year-old woman with cancer of the orbit, requiring exenteration. With a massively disfiguring procedure looming and a poor prognosis even with the surgery, she offered to let us do experimental surgery on her eye. We knew we would get her eye as part of the exenteration tissue block." After the procedure, "we watched her heal on a daily basis, right up until the exenteration 11 days later," Dr. McDonald said. "The pathology report showed the healing pattern that we now know so well. Mrs. Cassady lost her battle with cancer, but her remarkable bravery and generosity in the face of such tragedy gave us vital information that allowed the FDA to accelerate the approval process." LSU named the laser facility in her honor. EW 30th anniversary of laser vision correction • Retinascoping a monkey Dr. McDonald performing retinoscopy on a PRK postop monkey in 1987 Source: Marguerite McDonald, MD

• Blank Page
• Blank Page (1)