Finding the Right Surgeon

Being a child of the internet generation really affected the way that I went about choosing my doctor.

In my experience, the "best" people for a given service are the ones who don't really have to advertise because word-of-mouth referrals bring in enough business on its own. With this in mind, I didn't look for ads for laser eye clinics. I'm especially wary of anyone who advertises in newspapers because not only is that where those "One eye for $500!" ads proliferate (and nothing says 'butcher' more to me than doctors pushing factory-style discount eye surgery), but I'm also wary of any doctor or clinic that uses such an outdated medium to find clients. This may sound unfair, but let me explain my rationale in more detail.

Newspaper advertising, almost more than any other medium, is used by people trying to cast a wide net because they're not positive exactly who or what their desired audience is. In addition to this, the way advertising mediums have changed almost guarantees that the audience reached by news ads are older as we've mostly moved on to consuming news media online. What this says to me is that these eye clinics are trying to reach a market segment that may not necessarily have the access to information provided by the internet, and I'm not interested in a surgeon who is banking on their patients being less informed.

Further, I wanted a surgeon--and a clinic--that was modern, smart, and up to date. I might be biased, but any place sinking money into newspaper ads are probably not making the best decision regarding their advertising budgets--not smart. Anyone who wasn't accustomed to online advertising probably also wasn't as accustomed to the internet as a medium, and considering how online medical databases are essential for medical professionals to access the most recent and relevant research in their fields, I saw this as another warning sign. Further, considering that laser eye surgery depends on doctors staying at the cutting edge of their industry's technology, anyone who was hesitant to utilize new technologies in other areas of their life also gave me pause.

I was lucky enough to be close to the Stanford University Medical Center, which, by reputation, housed many well-praised medical practices. I found out that the Stanford Eye Laser Center was part of this group, led by Dr. Edward Manche, who also happened to be a Professor of Ophthalmology in the Stanford University School of Medicine (not a bad resume). Again, being a Google junkie, I immediately set out to research him specifically.

In all my hours and hours of searching, I found only one negative experience--on Yelp and from a person who had obviously not done their own due diligence before the procedure (complaining that Doctor Manche never warned them about the possibility of chronic eye dryness or increased potential of complications if you have large pupils, which I find questionable as, in my own experience, we discussed it in detail). What I did find was an enormous amount of articles quoting him as an expert in the field, many articles congratulating or recognizing him for certain achievements, and even articles warning about the dangers of laser eye surgery where Dr. Manche fixed other people's botched surgeries. In addition to this, there were a solid amount of related medical publications with his name listed as an author and a good number of lectures from various speaking opportunities at conferences and medical schools around the United States (which, of course, I watched in order to get a feel of how he comported himself--in my opinion, he seemed humble, but definitely aware of his expertise).

One of the things that impressed me most was his listing on Trustedlasiksurgeons.com. Though I'm not overly familiar with the site, their criteria for choosing to list a surgeon seems pretty stringent (including years of experience, publications, FDA studies, personally doing the laser procedure, personal meetings with the patient during consultations, etc.) and they seemed to do so by region (that is, listing a single surgeon to a single region) and Dr. Manche covered basically all of Northern California. Also, when comparing Dr. Manche with some of the surgeons listed for Southern California and Oregon, I took note of the sheer difference in experience in terms of numbers; many other surgeons were listed as having performed 3k-9k procedures personally and Dr. Manche was listed at 28k procedures completed. When taking into consideration that his wasn't a factory-style clinic and that he was the go-to guy not only for other people's botched laser surgeries, but for other medical professionals looking for laser eye surgery, I was very impressed. It is very important to note that all this information that I found on him was cross-referenced with other sources to ensure that what was said on this one site wasn't fabricated (obviously, this strategy isn't perfect, though).

I went to his website (http://eyelaser.stanford.edu) which was informative and well-constructed (for many of the same reasons listed above, I'm not sure I would trust a clinic that didn't have a web site). I also noted that his prices were definitely higher than most other locations I'd looked at peripherally ($2,950 per eye for Wavefront LASIK with Intralase or Wavefront PRK), but taking his stellar resume into account, I was willing to consider the higher price for the higher quality.

After this research, I scheduled a free initial consultation for May 17, 2010.