Vision Eye Institute’s Associate Professor Michael Lawless has become the first Australian surgeon to perform a successful SMILE® Pro laser eye surgery.

Small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) surgery is a keyhole form of laser eye surgery that can be used to treat short-sightedness and astigmatism. It works by reshaping the cornea (the clear window at the front of the eye) by removing a disc-shaped piece of tissue from it, known as a lenticule.

Although the original SMILE procedure is fast and painless, SMILE Pro is even faster and more comfortable for patients – the laser part of the surgery now only takes 10 seconds per eye (previously, it took 27 seconds per eye). The entire SMILE Pro surgery takes approximately 10 minutes per eye. The procedure uses the VISUMAX® 800, the newest generation of ZEISS femtosecond lasers. Compared to its predecessors, VISUMAX 800 is a step up in terms of safety, accuracy and patient experience.

‘Operating with the VISUMAX 800 is like driving a Tesla instead of an older, petrol car,’ A/Prof Lawless says.

With a strong commitment to innovation and clinical excellence, Vision Eye Institute has been a pioneer of laser eye surgery in Australia. A/Prof Lawless was a member of the original group of Australian surgeons to obtain an excimer laser and was also the first surgeon in New South Wales to perform first-generation LASIK.

Also among Vision Eye Institute’s doctors are the first surgeons to perform laser eye surgery in Victoria and Brisbane, the first Australian surgeon to perform LASIK surgery with the intralase femtosecond laser and the first Sydney surgeon to perform SMILE. Vision Eye Institute Chatswood has also performed the most SMILE surgeries for a single clinic in Australia and New Zealand.

We are pleased to be one of the first Australian clinics to have the VISUMAX 800 installed. By offering SMILE Pro with the VISUMAX 800, Vision Eye Institute remains at the cutting edge of laser eye surgery.

‘It was a privilege to perform the first SMILE Pro surgery in Australia and New Zealand. I’m happy that our Sydney surgeons and patients will be able to benefit from this technology that takes SMILE and laser vision correction to another level,’ says A/Prof Lawless.