HELP - Laser Users Baseline Eye Examination

[Anthony Wallace <awallace@austin.unimelb.edu.au>]

Opinions please! A copy of this is also on MEDPHYS.

Do readers, wherever you are, HAVE to carry out baseline eye examinations
for their staff that use surgical, class 4 or equivalent, lasers? If so what
is your definition of a baseline eye examination? I can't find two
opthamologists who agree.

My present position is;
1.  This is litigous nonsense, a waste of resources,
2.  No amount of baseline examination will mitigate against an incident,
3.  An incident will, in all probability, appear as an acute presentation,
the detriment is obvious,
4.  My responsibility is to adequately train laser staff, provide them with
appropriate safety protocols and equipment, and register approved laser
operators within the medical centre. If all these requirements are met and
can be shown to be met then baseline eye examinations make no significant
contribution to the exercise at all!

Australasian standards state that a baseline eye examination, with
absolutely no definition of what this strange beast is, should be carried
out on staff who start and leave any practice involving the use of lasers. I
would guess that this would involve approximately 100 nursing staff all of
whom are notoriously fluid in their areas of medical practice.

The time approaches for me to stand up and be counted - any ideas?
Anthony B. Wallace. MSc., MAppSc.
MACPSEM, MARPS, SMBE
Senior Medical Physicist
Medical Engineering & Physics Department
Austin & Repatriation Medical Centre - Repatriation campus
Heidelberg, 3081, AUSTRALIA
ph  : int-61-3-9496-2066
fax : int-61-3-9496-4282