[smoghat]

6 an hour isn’t unusual at a dedicated center in the US.

I had early cataract surgery at a “mill” here in NJ. There are similar centers all over. In talking both with my eye doctor and my cousin who is an eye surgeon in on the other side of the country, I was told it was better to go with a doctor who specialized in this surgery at a dedicated center (common called a mill). The rate of complications is less because they have really dialed in the procedure and have seen everything. The first day I saw him, I was literally the last patient. He said he had operated on 80 eyeballs that day. I think it was a long day, with more than eight hours but he does a few of those days a week at different centers. He has a large crew of support staff and multiple rooms to achieve this throughput. He did a good job. It was not inexpensive. He was driving a nice Porsche. He didn’t have time for a pleasant bedside chat.

I still don’t know why I had to get the surgery at 50. I haven’t had any other weird health issues like that. The one odd thing is that my grandfather was the first person to do cataract surgery in Lithuania, back in the 1920s. I always wonder if there was a link.