While sitting in the waiting room of the Jacksonville Eye Center in Riverside, 21-year-old Richard London saw a side of his mother hed never seen before, specifically, the inside of her cornea.

The amazing images displayed on a 52-inch LCD monitor, while in a nearby room Dr. Robert Schnipper peered through microscopes and used computer-controlled lasers to restore Rhoda Londons sight through the most advanced lasik techniques available.

Its amazing how you can improve your vision like that, the son said with an intense gaze. You cant do that with anything else, like hearing.

But London wasnt the first person to watch Schnipper in action. In fact, Schnipper and his colleague, Dr. Senthil Krishnasamy, host monthly live surgeries where potential patients, family and friends or those who just want to see something extraordinary, can watch a lasik surgery and decide if its the right way to correct their vision.

Lincoln had a facial defect: Study

CHICAGO: Artists, sculptors and photographers knew Abraham Lincoln's face had a good side. Now it's confirmed by science. Laser scans of two life masks, made from plaster casts of Lincoln's face, reveal the 16th president's unusual degree of facial asymmetry, according to a new study.

The left side of Lincoln's face was much smaller than the right, an aberration called cranial facial microsomia. The defect joins a long list of ailments - including smallpox, heart illness and depression - that modern doctors have diagnosed in Lincoln.

Lincoln's contemporaries noted his left eye at times drifted upward independently of his right eye, a condition now termed strabismus. Lincoln's smaller left eye socket may have displaced a muscle controlling vertical movement, said Dr Ronald Fishman, who led the study published in the August issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.

Recto-urethral Fistula After Combination Radiotherapy For Prostate Cancer

UroToday.com- There are many choices for the primary local treatment of adenocarcinoma of the prostate. For patients with moderate or high-risk prostate cancer (Gleason score 7 or greater, PSA over 10, and clinical stage greater than T2a) dose escalation of radiation therapy has been employed. This is commonly done by combining external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) and radioactive seed implants. This approach is intended to improve local control and disease-free survival. This combined approach, however, can be associated with an increased risk of rectal toxicity compared with either modality alone.

In a recent paper by C. Marguet and colleagues from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, the authors present their experience with 6 patients treated with combined prostate brachytherapy and EBRT who developed rectourethral fistula subsequent to rectal procedures.

Neuropathy experts make case for infrared light therapy

David A. Arnall, PT, PhD, is not what one would call an early adopter. A self-proclaimed professional skeptic, he is a believer in evidence-based medicine who, under most circumstances, puts no stock in fledgling therapies until their efficacy has been validated through rigorous scientific study.

The use of infrared light therapy for peripheral neuropathy is not what one would call evidence-based medicine-certainly not if one works for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In an October decision memorandum, CMS ruled that the handful of studies were sufficient to conclude that the therapy was neither reasonable nor necessary for that indication. Most of the studies were retrospective or had other limitations; the single well-designed randomized, controlled trial found no significant benefit.

Rick Ankiel’s wild ride

The most inspirational story of the 2007 baseball season is not a scientific marvel's methodical pursuit of a career home run record. The most improbable story of 2007 is not the rise of the Seattle Mariners, or the fall of the Oakland Athletics. The most inspirational, most improbable, most likely-to-be-dramatized-by-a-screenwriter story of 2007 concerns a 28-year-old center fielder for a last-place minor-league team in Memphis.

Aussies considering cosmetic intervention

MORE than half of Australians are thinking about going under the knife or having their face injected with chemicals to look better, an independent survey into cosmetic intervention has revealed. A survey of 2211 people by NEWS.com.au and research company CoreData found 60.8 per cent of respondents have thought about having plastic surgery while 58.5 per cent have considered non-surgical procedures such as wrinkle treatments and laser hair removal. Special treat Feelings of self-worth and confidence are the biggest drivers of cosmetic surgery and non-surgical treatments, with the majority of respondents doing it to feel better about themselves, followed by looking more attractive for their partner. Improving appearances in a bid to further careers was the least popular reason for both types of procedures.

Laser scans reveal how lopsided Lincoln’s face really was

CHICAGO — Artists, sculptors and photographers knew Abraham Lincoln's face had a good side. Now it's confirmed by science.Laser scans of two life masks, made from plaster casts of Lincoln's face, reveal the 16th president's unusual degree of facial asymmetry, according to a new study.The left side of Lincoln's face was much smaller than the right, an aberration called cranial facial microsomia. The defect joins a long list of ailments — including smallpox, heart illness and depression — that modern doctors have diagnosed in Lincoln.Lincoln's contemporaries noted his left eye at times drifted upward independently of his right eye, a condition now termed strabismus. Lincoln's smaller left eye socket may have displaced a muscle controlling vertical movement, said Dr. Ronald Fishman, who led the study published in the August issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.Severe strabismus leads to double vision and can be treated today by surgery.“Lincoln noticed double vision only occasionally and it did not bother him a great deal,'' said Fishman, a retired Washington, D.C., ophthalmologist and history buff.Most people's faces are asymmetrical, Fishman said, but Lincoln's case was extreme, with the bony ridge over his left eye rounder and thinner than the right side, and set backward.Lincoln's appearance was mocked by his political enemies, historians say.