Mark Cohenis a Canadian laser eye surgeon who practices in Montreal and Toronto. He is CEO and Co-Founder of Vision Group. In 2001, he and Avi Wallerstein founded LASIK MD, Canada's largest provider of laser refractive surgery. LASIK MD performs over sixty percent of all laser vision correction procedures in Canada. [1] He is one of only 14 certified C-LASIK instructors in North America.
Cohen completed his medical degree (MD, CM) in 1992 and specialization in ophthalmology (FRCSC) at McGill University. At McGill, he was a recipient of the Holmes Gold Medal, [2] awarded to the graduate with the highest aggregate academic standing upon completion of medical school. Following residency, he completed his training with a post-doctoral fellowship in corneal transplantation surgery and laser vision correction of the cornea at the Université de Montréal. He previously attended Vanier College in Montreal.
Cohen is clinical instructor and lecturer in refractive surgery at McGill University and the Université de Sherbrooke. Residents from these training programs receive their clinical training at the LASIK MD facility in Montreal. This facility is a non-hospital based facility accredited site by the College of Physicians of Quebec for the training of laser vision correction to ophthalmic surgery residents. [3]
Cohen is a certified C-LASIK instructor, one of 14 surgeons in North America with the designation to teach LASIK by the developers of the first LASIK microkeratome (Chiron). In 2000, he co-authored the Quebec government’s Council for the Evaluation of Health Care Technology's report on LASIK and PRK, a document designated for the public. Cohen was a clinical assessor for Bausch and Lomb for the zero compression Hansatome microkeratome, specifically designed to allow for safer and thinner corneal flaps for LASIK surgery. He is one of two National Medical Directors for LASIK MD (2001–present).
Cohen is a North American pioneer in the treatment of keratoconus and ectatic diseases of the cornea. As a method of treating the underlying disease and reversing the damage that has previously occurred, he began performing corneal collagen cross linking combined with topography guided excimer laser ablations in 2009. Based on the results of these treatments, he developed the Montreal Protocol, a standardized method to treat keratoconus and post-op ectasia, which is now used in over 15 Canadian cities. Due to FDA restrictions, this treatment remains unavailable in the United States as of 2017.
Cohen is the President/CEO of LASIK MD (2001–present) and Cataract MD (2004–present), and co-National Medical Director (2001–present). In 2014, LASIK MD earned Platinum Club status in Canada's Best Managed Companies competition sponsored by Deloitte, CIBC, the National Post and Queen's School of Business. Platinum Club status is awarded to those organizations who have been Best Managed Companies for seven consecutive years or more. [4]
In 2016, concurrent with an investment by the Caisse de Dépôt (CDPQ) in LASIK MD, a Board of Directors was created and Cohen was named the Chairman.
In 2024, Dr. Mark Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Vision Group, was named one of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2024 Québec Award Winner. In 2007, Cohen was awarded the Bank of Montreal Arista award organized by the Young Chamber of Commerce of Montreal as Quebec’s leading Young Professional for the year. [5] In 2006, he received the Howard Stotland Technology Award for Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year. [6] In 2008, Cohen was named one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40. [7] He is a Quebec recipient of the Ernst & Young 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the professional/financial services category [8] and received a National Citation in honour of Service Excellence. [9]
Keratoconus (KC) is a disorder of the eye that results in progressive thinning of the cornea. This may result in blurry vision, double vision, nearsightedness, irregular astigmatism, and light sensitivity leading to poor quality-of-life. Usually both eyes are affected. In more severe cases a scarring or a circle may be seen within the cornea.
Far-sightedness, also known as long-sightedness, hypermetropia, and hyperopia, is a condition of the eye where distant objects are seen clearly but near objects appear blurred. This blur is due to incoming light being focused behind, instead of on, the retina due to insufficient accommodation by the lens. Minor hypermetropia in young patients is usually corrected by their accommodation, without any defects in vision. But, due to this accommodative effort for distant vision, people may complain of eye strain during prolonged reading. If the hypermetropia is high, there will be defective vision for both distance and near. People may also experience accommodative dysfunction, binocular dysfunction, amblyopia, and strabismus. Newborns are almost invariably hypermetropic, but it gradually decreases as the newborn gets older.
LASIK or Lasik, commonly referred to as laser eye surgery or laser vision correction, is a type of refractive surgery for the correction of myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. LASIK surgery is performed by an ophthalmologist who uses a femtosecond laser or a microkeratome to create a corneal flap to expose the corneal stroma and then an excimer laser to reshape the corneal stroma in order to improve visual acuity.
Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and laser-assisted sub-epithelial keratectomy (LASEK) are laser eye surgery procedures intended to correct a person's vision, reducing dependency on glasses or contact lenses. LASEK and PRK permanently change the shape of the anterior central cornea using an excimer laser to ablate a small amount of tissue from the corneal stroma at the front of the eye, just under the corneal epithelium. The outer layer of the cornea is removed prior to the ablation.
Refractive surgery is an optional eye surgery used to improve the refractive state of the eye and decrease or eliminate dependency on glasses or contact lenses. This can include various methods of surgical remodeling of the cornea (keratomileusis), lens implantation or lens replacement. The most common methods today use excimer lasers to reshape the curvature of the cornea. Refractive eye surgeries are used to treat common vision disorders such as myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia and astigmatism.
Corneal transplantation, also known as corneal grafting, is a surgical procedure where a damaged or diseased cornea is replaced by donated corneal tissue. When the entire cornea is replaced it is known as penetrating keratoplasty and when only part of the cornea is replaced it is known as lamellar keratoplasty. Keratoplasty simply means surgery to the cornea. The graft is taken from a recently deceased individual with no known diseases or other factors that may affect the chance of survival of the donated tissue or the health of the recipient.
Automated lamellar keratoplasty (ALK), also known as keratomileusis in situ, is a non-laser lamellar refractive procedure used to correct high degree refractive errors. This procedure can correct large amounts of myopia and hyperopia. However, the resultant change is not as predictable as with other procedures.
LASIK MD is a North America provider of laser vision correction and the largest provider of laser vision correction in North America based on procedure volume. As of 2013, LASIK MD performs over sixty percent of all laser vision correction procedures in Canada.
Pellucid marginal degeneration (PMD) is a degenerative corneal condition, often confused with keratoconus. It typically presents with painless vision loss affecting both eyes. Rarely, it may cause acute vision loss with severe pain due to perforation of the cornea. It is typically characterized by a clear, bilateral thinning (ectasia) in the inferior and peripheral region of the cornea, although some cases affect only one eye. The cause of the disease remains unclear.
Avi Wallerstein is a Canadian ophthalmologist and laser eye surgeon who specializes in surgical vision correction, also termed refractive eye surgery. He practises in Montreal and Toronto. In 2001, he co-founded LASIK MD with Mark Cohen. LASIK MD is Canada's largest provider of laser refractive surgery, performing over 60,000 procedures a year. He is one of only 14 certified CLasik instructors in North America.
Stephen Updegraff, M.D., FACS is an American refractive surgeon best known for his early involvement in, and contributions to, LASIK. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a board-certified member of the American Board of Ophthalmology, a founding member of the American College of Ophthalmic Surgeons, and a member of the International Society of Refractive Surgery, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, and the Pine Ridge Eye Study Society. Updegraff currently serves as the medical director of Updegraff Vision in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Gholam A. Peyman is an Iranian American ophthalmologist, retina surgeon, and inventor. He is best known for his invention of LASIK eye surgery, a vision correction procedure designed to allow people to see clearly without glasses. He was awarded the first US patent for the procedure in 1989.
Jeffery J. Machat MD, FRCSC, DABO is an ophthalmologist in the United States and Canada specializing in surgical vision correction better known as refractive eye surgery. He is most known for being the Co-Founder of TLC Laser Eye Centers with Elias Vamvakas in 1993. The first TLC clinic was located in Windsor, Canada and treated thousands of patients from across all of North America. The clinic also hosted thousands of eye care specialists trying to learn about LASIK and PRK prior to US FDA approval which came three years later. Together Vamvakas and Machat built an incredible company of 83 LASIK clinics through both organic growth and strategic acquisition by May 2002 to become the largest provider of LASIK in North America. Dr. Machat pioneered not only LASIK but the concept of Optometric Comanagement throughout the 1990s, helping build a TLC network of over 14,000 referring optometrists by 2000. In 2005-2006, Machat spent time in Europe working to build Optical Express, helping David Moulsdale, owner and Founder, to transform the company from 300 optical stores into the leading provider of LASIK vision correction in Europe with 55 clinics in the span of 2 years.
The Alpins Method is a system to plan and analyze the results of refractive surgical procedures, such as laser in-situ keratomileus (LASIK). The Alpins Method is also used to plan cataract/toric intraocular lens (IOL) surgical procedures.
Peter S. Hersh is an American ophthalmologist, researcher, and specialist in LASIK eye surgery, keratoconus, and diseases of the cornea. He co-authored the article in the journal Ophthalmology that presented the results of the study that led to the first approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the excimer laser for the correction of nearsightedness in the United States. Hersh was also medical monitor of the study that led to approval of corneal collagen crosslinking for the treatment of keratoconus. He was the originator, in 2015, of CTAK for keratoconus, patent holder, and co-developer.
Raymond Mark Stein, MD, FRCSC, DABO, is a Canadian ophthalmologist. He practices refractive and cataract surgery. He is the medical director of the Bochner Eye Institute in Toronto, Ontario and Chief of Ophthalmology at the Scarborough General Hospital.
Seyed Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi is an ophthalmologist and full professor at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, as well as the head and founder of the Noor Ophthalmology Complex.
Post-LASIK ectasia is a condition similar to keratoconus where the cornea starts to bulge forwards at a variable time after LASIK, PRK, or SMILE corneal laser eye surgery. However, the physiological processes of post-LASIK ectasia seem to be different from keratoconus. The visible changes in the basal epithelial cell and anterior and posterior keratocytes linked with keratoconus were not observed in post-LASIK ectasia.
Farhad Hafezi is a prominent Swiss eye surgeon and researcher. Hafezi first gained recognition as a leading retina researcher in 1994, having been the first to discover a gene responsible for light-induced retinal degeneration. However, he changed his research focus to the cornea in 2003, and it is this work, particularly on corneal collagen cross-linking (CXL), which he helped pioneer, and advanced laser refractive surgery that he is internationally known for today. Hafezi's current clinical and laboratory research is focused on gaining a better understanding of the cornea. His research group at the University of Zurich has three main research foci:
Anastasios John Kanellopoulos is a Greek-American eye surgeon specializing in corneal transplantation, cornea crosslinking for keratoconus, complicated cataract surgery and complicated glaucoma. Widely known for research and clinical contributions in micro-incision cataract, customized laser refractive surgery and corneal cross-linking propagation and most innovations, reducing corneal transplants for advanced keratoconus.
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