In order to be added to this list, a Dallas Lasik surgeon had to have a decent track record. If we found a history of patient complaints, or some other kind of “bad press,” then that surgeon was left off the list. And believe me, we looked for this kind of thing!

Dallas Area Surgeons

We are not endorsing any of the Dallas surgeons on this list. We have merely compiled them for your convenience. You should thoroughly research the credentials, professional license, and success rate of any Dallas Lasik surgeon you are considering. You are your only advocate in this process.

Booth Eye Care and Laser Center
This is the practice of Dr. William Booth. According to his website, Dr. Booth has performed more than 99,000 Lasik procedures over the last 20 years or so. His office is located in Plano, Texas. At the time of publication, we could not find a BBB record for this practice.
www.boothelasercenter.com

Carter Eye Center
This practice is made up of Dr. Harvey Carter (the principal) and a handful of other surgeons / optometrists. They are located in Dallas, off the North Central Expressway.I saw a few complaints on their BBB record, but they seem to have been resolved. There was also something on their record about questionable advertising claims. You can read it for yourself through the link above.
www.cartereyecenter.com

Key-Whitman Eye Center
This practice is managed by Dr. Jeffrey Whitman. It has grown over the years and now has locations in Dallas, Plano in Arlington. There were ten surgeons with this practice, at the time this list was created. They had a couple of complaints on their BBB record, both of which were labeled as billing / collection issues.
www.keywhitman.com

Researching Lasik Surgery

We have provided some pertinent information about each of the Lasik surgeons on this list. Some of the information was gleaned from the surgeons’ websites. We made efforts to verify these details, but we cannot attest to their accuracy. For example, if a Dallas surgeon claimed to have performed more than 500 procedures, we reported that credential on this page. As a patient, it is your responsibility to scrutinize the credentials of the Dallas Lasik surgeon you choose. We are merely presenting this list a time-saver for you.

It’s important to research a surgeon beyond his or her website. After all, they can say whatever they want in their brochures and on their websites, and they can also leave out certain things. Here are some of the ways you can research a Lasik surgeon in the Dallas area:

Start with Google. Put the surgeon’s name into a search, and see what you can come up with. Then search for the name of the surgery center. You might also want to include the word “complaint” with your search query. Click through as many search results and pages as necessary to dig up information.

In some cases, surgeons who have negative information posted about them online will practice what’s known as reputation management. This is when they try to bury the negative info by publishing a lot of other stuff online (blogs, press releases, multiple websites, etc.). So keep digging! If I were going to trust my eyesight to a Dallas Lasik surgeon, I would darn sure want to know what’s out there about the person. So keep scrolling and clicking through those pages.

This contest is the creation of the self-proclaimed “World-renowned eye surgeon” (and all-around glory hound) Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler.

This reminds me of a contest I saw on the news recently, at one of the strip clubs near the Austin airport. They called their contest “Stripper Idol,” and they were sent a cease-and-desist notice from the company behind American Idol. The Lasik version is just an unoriginal twist on something hundreds of other businesses have done.

To enter the contest, contestants (i.e., viable business leads for the good doctor) simply have to sing and dance like a trained monkey, film it, and then submit the video through a special website set up for the purpose. That’s the gist of it. You humiliate yourself, and the Lasik surgeon gets hundreds or thousands of business leads from people seeking Lasik surgery.

Shrewd marketing or shameless promotion? You be the judge.

Personally, I will file this one under “I” for “I love myself.” But what else would you expect from somebody who uses his own face as a website logo — someone who glamorizes a medical procedure that has serious risks?

The contest is open to California residents 21 years or older [who have no sense of self worth]. The part in brackets is an editorial contribution.

The agencies involved are the National Eye Institute, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Defense Department. They have combined forces to conduct a three-year study to find out how many patients are having negative symptoms following a Lasik procedure. Patients frequently report having problems after this type of eye surgery, and it has many health professionals concerned. That is in part what prompted this study.

The FDA also issued “reminder” letters to more than a dozen Lasik centers recently. The centers had failed to report patient complaints following eye surgeries, which they are required to do by law.

Common Problems with the Surgery

Lasik (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) surgeries have been conducted in the United States for nearly twenty year. Each year, more than a million people undergo Lasik surgery to correct their vision. Many of these people report having problems after the procedure — problems that range from mild and temporary on one hand, to sever and persistent on the other.

But how common are Lasik problems anyway? According to data collected over the last few years, approximately 5% of patients report having problems of some kind. Common complaints include the following:

• Dry-eye syndrome
• Poorer vision than what they had before the surgery
• Troublesome “halos” appearing around objects
• Glares around objects

In more extreme cases, patients have actually gone blind after having a Lasik surgery procedure. These cases are far less common than the ones listed above, but it has happened often enough to raise concern among health officials.

The real problem with all of this is the serious lack of study. That’s what has prompted the three-year study by these government agencies. In the past, there has been a lack of reporting, data collection and health monitoring — on a nationwide scale. So the percentage of patients who have Lasik problems could actually be higher than 5 percent.

To support this new study, the FDA is going to launch a web-based survey to keep track of patient complaints, post-surgery problems and the like. It’s the first time such a comprehensive survey has been conducted on the long-term effects of Lasik procedures. It should reveal some useful data. Time will tell.