A Toronto Judge has ordered Dr. Yair Karas (“Karas”) to pay Dr. Brent Jesperson (“Jesperson”) $5.26 million for a “poorly done and misleadingly explained operation” that caused Jesperson to be unable to continue practicing dentistry and left him feeling depressed and suicidal.
In 1994, Jesperson decided to undergo vision-correction surgery, known as radial keratotomy (“RK”), in order to play sports without having to wear glasses. Although he was admittedly capable of performing his work as a dentist with glasses, he chose to proceed with the procedure after his ophthalmologist suggested the surgery to him and advised that the risks were minimal.
RK was invented by a Russian doctor in the 1970s. It involves making incisions with a diamond blade in the cornea in a radial pattern around a clear area, flattening the cornea and correcting the nearsightedness. RK was an elective surgery that was performed on thousands of nearsighted Canadians for many years, until it was replaced in the 1990s by safer, more effective laser-assisted procedures.
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