River Forest, IL | The Kirk Eye Center Office | Kirk Eye Center

Kent Kirk: When we built our office some 35 years ago, we made the decision to build a surgery center attached to our office and we felt that this offered a lot of advantages. Universally to a patient, people are nervous about their eye surgery, and we feel if they can come to a familiar setting, they see a lot of the same faces they've seen in the office for their consultation. They see them over in surgery and that really gives them a lot of peace of mind and ease when they're coming for surgery. The other big anxiety is whether they'd feel something during the surgery, and we have a great staff that puts people at ease, but also an anesthesiologist here that's dedicated to eye surgery and that's all we do here is just eye surgery. So we're not squeezing people in between other major procedures. And we just do eye surgery here, which we find works very well from a convenient standpoint, but also efficiency for us knowing what's next on our schedule.

One of the advantages of having our surgery here and it being an eye only center is we run it and we make all the decisions regarding the care that's received in the center. We've really made a commitment at Kirk Eye Center to have the newest, latest, best technology. And so we don't have to go to a board or a higher up to decide what to buy, what the newest best latest technology is. If we feel it'll provide better care for our patients, we don't hesitate to have that available.

When a patient comes in to me and is seeking to get out of their glasses and contacts, I think a real advantage we have is that we have a large armamentarium to choose from in terms of treating that patient. So my first thing that I like to do is to really listen to what the patient has to say. They detail what they do at work, what they enjoy doing in their free time. And then I try to customize and personalize a plan for them based on those activities and those requirements that they have.

I have a number of procedures to choose from not only laser vision correction, LASIK and PRK, we can do LRIs for astigmatism, we have lens replacement procedures that are available. And we're finding that more and more people are choosing that option because it can be a more permanent solution to their vision problems. My goal really is to provide a vision plan for the patient for a lifetime of good vision. It's not just something they come in, I take care of their vision problem and send them off. I really expect them to remain a patient of mine, and I see them year after year and their eyes will change with time and we will need to do other things down the road. And I think it's good to establish that plan when we see them initially to decide what to do for them and what's the best procedure for that patient.