Leading Ophthalmology Expert Witness Evaluates Permanent Vision Loss After Retinal Detachment

Case Overview

This visual impairment case involves a patient who suffered a retinal detachment. The repair procedure was complicated by a suprachoroidal hemorrhage. The patient returned to the hospital some time after the initial injury reporting vision loss, pain, and redness. He was diagnosed with recurrent retinal detachment, and was told that he needed to wait for the return of his treating ophthalmologist to proceed with the procedure to reattach his retina. A week later, the procedure was performed. The patient suffers from permanent vision loss, allegedly due to the delay in care he received.

Questions to the Ophthalmology expert and their responses

Do you routinely perform retinal detachment repairs?

I routinely treat patients with rhegmatogenous and complex retinal detachments. I am a fellowship trained, board certified vitreoretinal surgeon and have been performing retinal detachment repairs for the past 6 years with approximately 350 67108/67113 coded procedures.

Can you speak to complications that can occur during retinal detachment repair, such as a suprachoroidal hemorrhage?

I am able to definitively speak to complications that occur during retinal detachment repair including suprachoroidal hemorrhages, recurrent detachment, and proliferative vitreoretinopathy.

Are you familiar with patients who have recurrent retinal detachment?

With these techniques, I have successfully repaired first time detachment, recurrent detachment, and complex detachments due to proliferative vitreoretinopathy and diabetic retinopathy.

Can you speak to the correlation between timely repair of retinal detachment and long term side effects, such as vision loss?

Depending on the configuration of the retinal detachment, there are guidelines to how quickly a repair should be done, and I am able to fully disclose the standard of care in the field.

About the expert

This qualified expert of Ophthalmology obtained his BS in Chemistry/Biology from Emory University and his MD from New York University. He completed his Internship in Surgery at New York University and his Post-Doc Fellowship and Residency in Ophthalmology and his Fellowship in Vitreo-retinal at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. He has 50+ Publications on Ophthalmology and is currently an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at a Medical Center in the South.