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Can't Get This Stuff at Blockbuster

When I began my residency at Manhattan Eye & Ear in 1978, the standard cataract operation was intracapsular surgery, followed by eyeglasses. While I was there we switched to extracapsular extraction, then phacoemulsification, first in the anterior chamber, then posterior. We used four-loop and two-loop Binkhorst implants, and anterior chamber lenses. We put posterior chamber implants in the sulcus, and then in the bag. Our preferred technique changed almost monthly because that's how fast surgical techniques and implants evolved. I was, literally, an active participant in some of the most exciting moments in 20th century ophthalmology. What stories I have to tell!

That time was also when surgeons began to abandon 16-mm film in favor of videotape, and I was there to grab the footage. Some I filmed personally; some I was given; and I'm sure I "borrowed" a few, if you get my drift. Much of my video collection was clinical, but I also had several landmark research videos that elegantly showed why lens design had to evolve.

I always thought that someday I would put together a compendium of my life in implant surgery, perhaps when I turned 70, if the tapes had not degenerated by then. I kept my history sealed in a dry, cool storage area and waited.

Recently, I visited the room where my memories were kept and stared sadly at an empty corner. We had sent in a team to shred old records and printouts, and through an error in communication they thought my taped-up, dust-covered cartons were part of the disposal. Well-trained in HIPAA compliance, they dutifully took a hammer to each cassette before discard.

I'm on a Mission

So, my new adventure is to track down memorable footage of implant surgery from 1975 to 1985. Perhaps you can point me to a cache hoarded by others. Maybe a young associate doesn't know what the retired surgeon left behind. Maybe someone knows if the promotional tapes of Cilco, Iolab, Heyer Schulte, Ioptex, and Intermedics still exist in a warehouse somewhere.

I hope this will be exciting, like discovering an unclaimed Wodehouse first edition in a dusty London bookstore. Who knows, maybe someone has a copy of a teaching tape I might have made years ago. I would love to watch it and probably cringe at my primitive skills -- but this time I would digitize a copy before returning it.