Shared access may be ideal model for surgeons to gain experience with femto cataract surgery

There is no way to write a commentary on femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery, or FLACS, without alienating many, including close friends and colleagues in practice and industry whom I work with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, that is the task at hand, and as Chief Medical Editor of one of the most widely read publications in ophthalmology, I cannot duck the responsibility.Working together with Sightpath Medical, I acquired one of the first 10 LenSx lasers (Alcon) about 2 years ago. None of my partners at Minnesota Eye Consultants were interested enough in this technology to invest, so I paid 50% of the cost myself and Sightpath paid the other half. I was, of course, fascinated to learn more about this instrument that carried the promise of changing forever the way we perform cataract surgery in advanced countries and saw it as an innovation that might match the transition to phacoemulsification and posterior chamber lenses.