NAVY REFRACTIVE SURGERY CENTER, SAN DIEGO -- Active duty Marines and sailors have the opportunity to receive the Cadillac of eye surgery, laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis, also known as Lasik, free-of-charge.

In the civilian sector, a person could pay up to $7,000, but service members will be provided the quick fix at seven naval hospitals at no cost.

The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery officials are in the final stages of approving the surgery for Navy and Marine Corps pilots and aviation candidates, according to a recent Navy Times article written by Chris Amos.

In the article, Navy Capt. Christopher Armstrong, director of aerospace medicine for the Navy, explains how recommendation waivers for Lasik surgery for naval and Marine aviators will begin this fall.

This year’s budget supports 70,000 surgeries for the service members prior to the end of the fiscal year.

Currently in the civilian world, Lasik, the newest eye-enhancement surgery, is a 10-minute procedure and accounts for 95 percent of all eye surgeries. The older, photorefractive keratectomy, known as PRK, process now accounts for less than three percent in the civilian world.

PRK, acknowledged in 2000 by the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery as an acceptable surgery for pilots, is an in-depth procedure where the protective covering of the eye is rubbed off, and the cornea is reshaped, explained Armstrong. The patient must wait for the covering to grow back — a painful process that can last for several days.

During the Lasik vision-enhancement surgery, the doctor cuts a small flap in the patients protective covering of the eye, reshapes the cornea and reattaches the flap. The procedure leaves the patient with a quicker, less painful recovery than PRK, explained Dr. James Newacheck, an optometrist with the surgery center.

Prior to the new vision-enhancement program, service members who received the Lasik surgery would not be eligible for a spot as an aviator because of the fear that harsh environments and gravitational forces could loosen the flap and possibly blind the pilot.

However, after new studies, naval doctors found that the flap can only be dislodged by direct manual pressure on the eye.

Locally at Miramar, service members have the opportunity to be screened for either the PRK or Lasik surgery.

Service members who wish to have the procedure performed must first go through an eye exam at the branch medical clinic and fill out an application for the process.

The service members’ command rates them on their priority level. Applications must be faxed to the Navy Refractive Surgery Center, Liberty Station, San Diego.

Once a patient completes the required screening at the surgery center, they will consult with an optometrist to set a date for surgery, added Newacheck. The priority level of the patients depends on their military occupational specialty and their deployment status.

During the past three years, the center treated more than 1,500 patients a year and provided service members with vision-enhancement surgery to help them serve the country with perfect vision.