Viewpoint FROM THE CHIEF MEDICAL EDITOR

A Capital Idea

Larry E. Patterson, M.D.

Ophthalmologists are, on the whole, a rather obsessive and anal retentive group. I certainly include myself. We have to be. We deal with huge amounts of detail and data each day. If we are not extremely careful, bad things can happen to our patients. You know, little things like incorrectly entering a LASIK patient's planned cylinder treatment can turn their 2 diopters of astigmatism into 4. Or the high myope who needs a special -6.00 diopter lens but gets a +6.00 instead.

So, we get used to wanting things done a certain way. The right way. It helps make us good doctors. Maybe not always the best spouses, but good doctors. Which brings me to the latest thing that's bothering me. It wouldn't concern some people, but it's really beginning to irritate me. Yes, I'm talking about the erratic and irrational capitalization of premium-channel IOL product names.

It all started with "crystalens." Perhaps inspired by avant-garde poet e. e. cummings, eyeonics thought it would be creative to use lower case letters both for its company name and its accommodative implant. This was followed by AMO's creative spelling of "ReZoom." Not to be outdone — and you know what's coming — Alcon went with "ReSTOR," oddly capitalized and also misspelled. As much as we pay for these lenses, can't we get some proper use of the majuscules and minuscules? (Betcha have to look those words up!)

I've noticed authors, advertisements and even paid consultants capitalize these names variously — there's Crystalens, Rezoom, ReZOOM, ReStor, Restore and so on. This is difficult to tolerate for the detail-oriented among us. I've even taken time during major office meetings to help my staff spell and capitalize these implants in accordance with the manufacturers' recommendations. Because I feel that if you can't get the little things right, you're also likely to mess up the important things.

But I've given up. My staff can't consistently get it, the print media continues to botch it, and I can only come up with one solution: I'm officially asking the companies to reconsider their multimillion-dollar marketing efforts and change the names to Crystalens, Rezoom and Restor (or perhaps Restore—I haven't settled on that yet). Of course, this may require FDA approval, so it may cost even more but, really, wouldn't it be worth it? The lenses themselves are marvels of design; they don't need typographic flourishes to convince me of their benefits. Besides, seeing lower-case "crystalens" in peer-reviewed journals really looks silly.

Just as I write this, I've gotten some encouraging news. Bausch & Lomb, the company that took over eyeonics, has done a very grown-up thing. I'm told that, soon, all materials referencing its recently-acquired accommodative implant will indeed say "Crystalens," capitalized like it should have been all along. One down, two to go.

Stay tuned for next month's equally deep and important column, when we discuss the sad state of affairs concerning doctors and others who don't understand that LASIK is an acronym, and should never be written "lasik"!