Informed Consent almost always offers you absolutely NO PROTECTION!  This is to protect the doctors from lawsuits.  Most of the risks may be spelled out, and even though the doctor(s) may tell you "there shouldn't be anything to worry about", there's ALWAYS SOMETHING TO WORRY ABOUT!  You never know what COULD happen, and once you sign the informed consent, that's it!

Letter printed in the J Cataract Refract Surg, Vol. 26, October 2000

The editorial by a journal editor was overdue. I consider it particularly appropriate that simultaneous bilateral laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) is subjected to serious questioning. One can only marvel at the naive trust by patients in modern medicine and in their surgeons and the similarly naive convictions of surgeons that simultaneous bilateral LASIK is what the patients need.

It is not purely a safety issue; simultaneous bilateral surgery violates the principles of informed consent. Nobody can deny that experience with the first eye will render the patient better informed for consenting to the procedure being performed on the second eye. Simultaneous bilateral surgery deprives the patient of the possibility of gaining a better refracative outcome in the second eye and of judging the visual benefit of the surgery by comparing the operated eye +/- residual spectacle or contact lens correction with the corrected unoperated eye. Finally, simultaneous bilateral LASIK preempts a possible decision by the patient to choose another type of refractive surgery for his/her second eye, such as photorefractive keratectomy, intracorneal ring segments, or a phakic intraocular lens, or to postpone surgery on the second eye until better procedures become available if the result of LASIK on the first eye proves unsatisfactory. He/she may not have to wait very long.

Klaus D. Teichmann, MD