Florida lawmakers must uphold high standards for eye surgeries| Opinion 

Americans who need eye surgery have long enjoyed some of the best care in the world under the skilled hands of our nation’s highly trained ophthalmologists.

However, Florida lawmakers are considering legislation that would threaten to compromise this level of care by allowing optometrists — professionals with significantly less training — to perform laser eye surgeries.

Our leaders in Tallahassee must put patients first and reject House Bill 449, sponsored by Hialeah State Rep. Alex Rizo, who wrote an opinion article in support of the bill for the Miami Herald. On Thursday, the bill was placed on an April 24 special order calendar.

This bill is dangerous given the risks to patients’ vision and potentially permanent complications that could arise if a surgery is performed incorrectly.

Although optometrists play a vital role in everyday eye care, they are neither medical doctors nor trained nor qualified to perform eye surgeries.

Whether you need surgery to address glaucoma or remove cataracts, you want to rest assured that the surgeon using a laser on your eye is adequately trained before you go under. That’s why these surgeries should only be performed by a licensed ophthalmologist, a medical doctor that undergoes more than 17,000 hours of instruction and more than a decade of rigorous training.

This includes a four-year undergraduate degree, four years of medical school, four years of residency training and, often, additional hands-on fellowship hours treating live patients to ensure they can perform eye surgeries safely and effectively.

While optometrists are excellent at their jobs and skilled in providing routine eye care, they lack the necessary education and hands-on training to perform eye surgery. Optometry schools do not provide the requisite knowledge and skills to safely operate on patients.

Some proponents claim we need HB 449 to ensure that Floridians have access to surgical eye care. However, the data tell a different story: 96.3 % of Floridians already live within 30 minutes of an ophthalmologist. While continuing to improve Floridians’ access to top-notch eye care is an important goal, there is no access issue — but HB 449 would let unqualified clinicians perform eye surgeries with only minimal training.

How minimal? Optometrists would be authorized to perform eye surgery by completing a mere 32-hour crash course that can be completed over a long weekend. This is not sufficient — and should not be acceptable.

In the handful of states where optometrists can perform certain surgeries, studies have shown that patients are nearly twice as likely to need additional surgery in the same eye when performed by an optometrist instead of a licensed ophthalmologist. This suggests a growing number of eye surgeries are being done unsafely by optometrists.

Moreover, a recent Mason-Dixon poll found that 79% of Floridians oppose allowing optometrists to perform eye surgeries and would prefer to leave surgery in the hands of medical doctors. Additionally, 40 states, including Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and the Veterans Health Administration, forbid optometrists from performing laser eye surgery.

The data are clear: Allowing optometrists to perform these delicate surgeries puts patients in harm’s way. And due to the unique demographics of our state, Floridians may be uniquely impacted.

We have the second highest proportion of residents aged 65 and above in the country, and older adults are much more likely to require eye surgery. In fact, about half of adults over the age of 80 have had or need cataract surgery.

We could see a serious increase in the number of life-altering injuries and complications at the hands of optometrists. It is shocking that lawmakers would consider any bill that could jeopardize the safety and quality of eye surgeries.

Mastering the skills to perform successful surgery on this delicate, vitally important part of the human body takes years of education, clinical training, and hands-on experience. If legislators allow optometrists to perform eye surgery without adequate medical training, Floridians could soon pay the price.

Lawmakers should not lower standards for eye safety and I urge them to oppose HB 449.

Raquel Goldhardt is a professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of Miami and president of the Florida Society of Ophthalmology.