If the Alaska State Medical Association, Alaska State Medical Board, Alaska Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons and the American Academy of Ophthalmology all oppose legislation impacting eye care, why would Alaska lawmakers support it?
House Bill 103 will allow optometrists, who have not gone to medical school, to perform delicate surgery on and around the eye. This legislation threatens Alaskans’ eye safety, thus defeating the core purpose of any legislation that involves medical care: patient safety.
Special interests are driving this dangerous legislation that is currently navigating its way to becoming law. I work with patients every day as an ophthalmologist, providing medical and surgical care, as I have for over 20 years. My training and career have provided me with a broad and deep pool of experience that heightens my grave concerns about this frightening bill. If HB 103 were signed into law, Alaskans would be subject to receiving care from optometrists outside the scope of their training. They lack the medical or surgical training to get a legislative green light to use needles, scalpels and even lasers on eyes. We need to put an end to this persistent attempt at creating bad public policy that places Alaskan’s vision at risk.
All ophthalmologists train for four grueling years in medical school and a one-year internship to receive comprehensive knowledge about the entire human body. This is followed by three to five more years of full time surgical residency training specific to the eye. This leads to thousands and thousands of hours of hands on training compared to, at best, hundreds of hours of hands on training for optometrists, none of which includes surgical training!
Simply put, there are no shortcuts for learning how to safely perform these procedures. It is likely that the training that optometrists would receive to perform eye procedures would amount to a weekend course!
If you want evidence to oppose the legislation, read a recent study on the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27467233.
The National Center for Biotechnology Study, a research arm of the National Institutes of Health, investigated laser surgery in Oklahoma after their state legislature allowed a similar law to pass. The results were clear. The study found that, when performed by optometrists, patients were twice as likely to require further surgery and were almost 10 times as likely to actually receive another laser surgery, as early as 11 days later! The study concluded, “Health policy makers should be cautious about approving laser privileges for optometrists practicing in other states…” This study should significantly slow the process to allow further analysis of the impacts of optometric surgery. Considerable differences in recovery and treatment clearly exist.
As a medical doctor and as an ophthalmologist, I am legally and ethically bound to put patient safety first. Most optometrists share this commitment and duty as well. Unfortunately, some are putting the profession ahead of patient care. I have great respect for the optometric profession and support their goal of expand the purview of their own regulatory board. In fact, if this legislation defined the surgical procedures that are outside their scope of practice, there will be significant medical support for the bill, including my support. We have no issue with an expanded board of optometry, which is the original stated purpose of this bill, but until the legislation defines what procedures must not be regulated by optometry, we cannot support this action.
It should be very clear who you would allow to perform surgery on your eyes. Please contact your state senator(s) as soon as possible if you agree. This bill could pass this week!
• Griff Steiner, MD, is a fourth-generation Alaskan and ophthalmologist performing eye surgery in Anchorage for over 20 years.
