The proposal to allow optometric practitioners to perform laser eye surgery is flat out dangerous. 

The proposal to allow optometric practitioners to perform laser surgery on the eye represents a clear and present danger to the patient population of Virginia.  Laser surgery is performed inside the eye , and without adequate surgical training and the experience to know how to deal with surgical complications, optometrists should not be performing these procedures. Proposals such as this demonstrate a misunderstanding of how competent surgeons learn their craft.  It is not feasible to assume that practice on a plastic model without proctored instruction is in any way adequate to prepare a non-surgically trained optometrist to undertake this kind of intra-ocular surgery. We would ask every legislator to consider whether he or she would submit to surgery by a practitioner without solid surgical training.  I certainly would not.  There are adequate resources in Virginia's ophthalmologic community to provide these procedures, so it is not a problem of access.

We urge the legislature to defeat this proposal in the interest of the safety of Virginia's citizens.

Sherief Raouf MD

New York Ophthalmic Society