A Top Gun’s eye for LASIK surgeries

Top Guns need keen eyesight, steely nerves and steady hands. So does refractive surgery? But what has one got to do with the other, you might ask. Lots if you are Steven Schallhorn, a former US Navy Top Gun flight instructor, who founded the Department of Defense’s refractive surgery programme.

Schallhorn, who has the “unique” background of having been a Navy pilot before becoming a doctor, draws parallels between flying F-14s and working on the latest ophthalmological techniques. Both are hi-tech and demand high levels of precision.

On a recent visit to India, Schallhorn, who has clocked over 2,000 flying hours and given inputs for the Tom Cruise blockbuster, says he studied LASIK treatments in detail. The effort was to get the best outcomes, the highest level of satisfaction, like quality night vision, he says. Performance improves if you do LASIK right, he says, and that becomes critical for people in demanding roles like pilots or anyone “who has to go in harms way”, like military personnel.

In India, he observes, top-end ophthalmologists do use the latest technology (femtosecond laser and wavefront guided technology). However, many continue to use the earlier generation technology. The field of refractive LASIK surgeries is developing like computers and the better the technology, the better the outcomes.

Some centres use technology that are 20 years old, Schallhorn rues. That’s like using an old laptop that works on an earlier operating system unlike, say, the latest Apple system. The problem is that only ophthalmologists know this and many go for the least expensive option as patients do not know better, he says.

When it comes to eye surgery, he says: “We can always do better.” There are milestones to be achieved, including minimising infections and bad outcomes. Having done much work on improving night vision, he says, the effort is to get “super normal vision”, beyond the perfect 20/20. In the realm of eye health, diagnostics is booming, from devices to monitoring diabetes, intra-ocular pressure, etc. Work is being done with virtual reality (VR) and Google Glass in conjunction with refractive surgery to correct vision, he says.

“I always wanted to go to medical school,” he says, reflecting on how he and a friend joined the Navy on a whim to fly planes. On the Hollywood connect, he says Jack Epps Jr, a scriptwriter, got a tour of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, where Top Guns are trained, with Schallhorn. A year later, Top Gun was made, and included some episodes from Schallhorn’s life. “I met my wife in the officers club,” says the Top Gun-turned-doctor, now retired but still consulting in San Diego.

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