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Home > Archive > Lasik Eyes Surgery > January 2005 > floppy disk - should I care?
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floppy disk - should I care?
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| Marlbaren 2005-01-28, 8:11 am |
| I just watched a commercial on television from the Gordon Binder
Vision Institute, proclaiming that their procedure is customized for
each eye and each patient on a floppy disk. In this world of
networked computers, should I care that the future of my vision could
be contained on floppy disks? It seems to me, in my personal
experience, that floppy disks can go bad, be manufactured poorly
(especially these days, since barely anyone uses them anymore) and are
susceptible to magnetic fields. How can a Lasik doctor proclaim that
such a cheap, unreliable, and "floppy" media is integral to a
"customized" procedure, when they trust the future of my sight is
trusted to this? Can't they just network the diagnostic machine to
the laser itself?
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| Glenn - USAEyes.org 2005-01-28, 8:11 am |
| No, you really should not care. Data is data no matter how it is
transferred.
The FDA has not approved a direct link between the wavefront
aberrometer and the wavefront-guided laser. I'm sure someday the FDA
will make it into the 21st century, and the medical equipment they
approve will be there waiting.
Glenn Hagele
Executive Director
Email to glenn dot hagele at usaeyes dot org
http://www.USAEyes.org
http://www.ComplicatedEyes.org
I am not a doctor.
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| serebel 2005-01-28, 8:11 am |
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Glenn - USAEyes.org wrote:
.. I'm sure someday the FDA
> will make it into the 21st century, and the medical equipment they
> approve will be there waiting.
>
Do you mean the US FDA? You really are an optomist. 
SErebel
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| Ragnar 2005-01-28, 8:11 am |
| Calm down.. the Dr. is merely trying to do some marketing with his
techno-babble.
The data you are referring to is the wavefront data, and is sent
directly to the laser system via an ethernet cable. The data is
stored on floppy just as an archive. Floppys are extremely
unreliable. After about 3 years, they lose their data integrity.
They are not very susceptible to magnetic fields though...it takes
quite a strong field to corrupt them. Assuming the laser system was
given the floppy as it's source of data, the file would not load if it
was corrupted.
This is much ado about nothing.
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:08:56 -0800, Marlbaren <c.hartmann@cox.net>
wrote:
>I just watched a commercial on television from the Gordon Binder
>Vision Institute, proclaiming that their procedure is customized for
>each eye and each patient on a floppy disk. In this world of
>networked computers, should I care that the future of my vision could
>be contained on floppy disks? It seems to me, in my personal
>experience, that floppy disks can go bad, be manufactured poorly
>(especially these days, since barely anyone uses them anymore) and are
>susceptible to magnetic fields. How can a Lasik doctor proclaim that
>such a cheap, unreliable, and "floppy" media is integral to a
>"customized" procedure, when they trust the future of my sight is
>trusted to this? Can't they just network the diagnostic machine to
>the laser itself?
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| Ragnar 2005-01-28, 8:11 am |
| I don't think they need to approve that. That's the way it's done on
the VISX S4.
Surely you don't mean they HAVE approved data transfer with a floppy.
Either method is obviously superior to human error in punching in the
numbers manually.
There was a prominent surgeon who had his techs entering data into the
laser system... incorrectly... he caught it in time though.
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 03:30:47 GMT, Glenn - USAEyes.org
<glenn.hageleSTOPSPAM@USAEyes.org> wrote:
>No, you really should not care. Data is data no matter how it is
>transferred.
>
>The FDA has not approved a direct link between the wavefront
>aberrometer and the wavefront-guided laser. I'm sure someday the FDA
>will make it into the 21st century, and the medical equipment they
>approve will be there waiting.
>
>Glenn Hagele
>Executive Director
>
>Email to glenn dot hagele at usaeyes dot org
>
>http://www.USAEyes.org
>http://www.ComplicatedEyes.org
>
>I am not a doctor.
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| Graeme Hewson 2005-01-31, 11:53 am |
| On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:08:56 -0800, c.hartmann@cox.net (Marlbaren)
wrote:
> I just watched a commercial on television from the Gordon Binder
> Vision Institute, proclaiming that their procedure is customized for
> each eye and each patient on a floppy disk. In this world of
> networked computers, should I care that the future of my vision could
> be contained on floppy disks?
[snip]
Speaking of which, I happened on a Web page today which describes in
outline various manufacturers' laser instruments, some of which it says
use Windows, in tones which imply this confers some kind of benefit.
I'm sure, of course, certain, there's no disadvantage.
As I've said, I'm considering surgery and I'm doing my homework, but I
haven't started looking at the devices on the market yet. If anyone
could point me towards papers on the reliability of the controlling
software, and so on, I'd be grateful.
Graeme Hewson
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