Your journey spans military medicine to global industry leadership. What did your 30-year military career teach you that still shapes how you lead and care for patients today?
My military experience gave me two leadership principles that still guide how I care for patients and how I work to lead in industry today.
First, working with Special Forces (the Green Berets) taught me that effectiveness depends on understanding people in their own context. There’s a common stereotype that these units are only about combat, but they are highly educated and place enormous emphasis on cultural awareness, relationship-building, and influence. Green Berets receive extensive cultural training and language instruction because you can’t operate successfully in other parts of the world with an ethnocentric “this is how we do it in America” mindset.
My own focus was Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand. I learned to speak Thai and spent significant time in-country learning the culture, traditions, and how to interact respectfully and effectively. That experience expanded beyond Thailand through exposure across the region, including places like Sri Lanka, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, and others. It gave me a lasting perspective: you can’t truly help, train, teach, or work with people until you understand their needs and environment. Even neighboring countries can be very different, and what works in one place may not translate to another.
That lesson applies directly to global leadership today. When you serve markets in dozens of countries, you can’t assume an American or European approach will fit everywhere. You have to listen, adapt, and respect local realities.
Second, the military reinforced my concept of servant leadership. Successful leaders don’t lead by issuing orders alone – they took responsibility for the people entrusted to them. You put others first: make sure your team is equipped, supported, and cared for before you are. The leader should only be first into danger and then last to leave, but in day-to-day life the team always comes first. That mindset has shaped the teams I build and how we work together.
What motivated you to move from full-time surgery into an industry leadership role?
What motivated me It was a shift in mindset that came directly from my military background: you don’t bring a problem to your leadership unless you’re also prepared to offer solutions. In the military, if you simply complain that something isn’t working, your leader's response is, “So what do you think we should do about it?” If you can’t answer that, you and your complaints are shut down quickly.
For years, I had been frustrated with the pace of progress in the US around the ICL platform. Myopia-correcting ICL was FDA-approved in 2005, but there was no toric option until 2018, and the newer EVO design – with the central ports – wasn’t approved until 2022. During that time, I kept asking STAAR why these advancements weren’t available, especially since surgeons in other parts of the world already had access to them. But I wasn’t truly helping solve the problem – I was just pointing it out and expecting someone else to fix it.
That changed in late 2016, when Caren Mason, former CEO of STAAR Surgical, asked to meet with me. I assumed she wanted to discuss clinical research opportunities, since the military has a large patient population and strong research capabilities. Instead, she asked me to join STAAR as Chief Medical Officer. My first reaction was that I didn’t even fully understand the role – but I immediately realized the irony: I had spent years criticizing the gaps without offering solutions, and now I was being offered a chance to help close those gaps. It was at that moment I understood I needed to be part of the solution.
I agreed to join in 2017, but on the condition that I would remain clinically active. That was unusual for an industry CMO, largely because of liability concerns – companies worry that if something goes wrong surgically, the lawsuit won’t just target the physician, but the company. The legal team initially resisted, and I was prepared to walk away. But the CEO supported it and made it happen.
That decision proved critical. In my view, surgeons won’t fully trust or engage with a CMO who no longer operates, because it’s easy to lose touch with real-world practice. Staying in the OR preserved my credibility and made my guidance more relevant. The response from surgeons has reinforced that: they want advice from someone who is still doing the work.
Soon, we were able to achieve some major milestones – toric approval in 2018 and EVO approval in 2022, even with COVID contributing to delays. Ultimately, the move into industry came from recognizing that leadership means more than identifying problems: it means helping deliver the solutions.
What’s your guiding mission in refractive surgery right now?
My guiding mission right now is training – building skill through repetition, consistency, and a deep understanding of every step. I believe surgeons become truly safe and confident when they know the procedure “backwards and forwards,” not when they do it occasionally.
When I speak with colleagues, I often find that many don’t treat ICL as a mainstream part of their refractive practice. They may do one or two cases a year, which makes it hard to gain momentum or feel fully comfortable. I stepped into my role, in part because I saw a clear opportunity: instead of only focusing on my own patients , I could multiply my impact by helping other surgeons succeed.
Operating myself is meaningful and fulfilling, but it’s still one patient at a time. Training changes the scale. If I can teach 10 surgeons, 20 surgeons, or 100 surgeons – and each of them performs the procedure regularly and safely – the benefit to patients becomes exponentially larger than anything I could accomplish alone.
What do you think refractive surgeons still underestimate about ICL outcomes and patient selection?
A major barrier is that ICL surgery still feels unfamiliar to many surgeons and somethong only to be considered if there is no possibility for laser correction. Most never had significant exposure to it during residency or fellowship, so it can seem new, complex, and even intimidating. That “mystery” creates hesitation, and hesitation can lead to inconsistent outcomes.
My approach has been to remove as much uncertainty as possible by standardizing the procedure. Surgeons naturally develop their own variations, but for training purposes I believe consistency matters. I break the surgery down into clear, repeatable steps – essentially a structured sequence that makes the process simple, understandable, and easier to reproduce safely.
From there, it’s about repetition: training and retraining internal teams, building skilled trainers, and then supporting surgeons directly in the field. I still spend a significant amount of time teaching surgeons hands-on.
Ultimately, my mission is to help surgeons feel confident and prepared – so patients everywhere can benefit from safe, successful outcomes.
I think many refractive surgeons still underestimate two things about ICL: how strong the long-term outcomes are with modern designs, and how broad the right patient pool can be when selection is done thoughtfully.
A big part of the hesitation comes from lack of exposure in training. Many surgeons didn’t learn ICL in residency or fellowship, so it feels unfamiliar. They may also hear negative opinions from senior colleagues who aren’t actively using phakic IOLs. And to be fair, there’s historical reason for that skepticism: the broader category of phakic IOLs had a pattern of short-term success followed by long-term failure. Over the years, there have been dozens of designs on the market, and many disappeared because problems only became obvious after a few years – leading to real concerns about corneal damage, glaucoma, and cataracts.
Where I think surgeons underestimate today’s reality is with the EVO ICL. This is not an unproven technology – it’s the latest generation of a platform with decades of experience in terms of material and positioning in the eye. The safety profile and outcomes are outstanding, and EVO has changed the playing field in a way that many surgeons haven’t fully appreciated yet.
Another factor is trust. Surgeons are naturally cautious about industry claims, and they should be. I’ve always believed in “trust, but verify.” In the military we put vision correction through rigorous testing – daytime and nighttime vision, contrast sensitivity, and performance under demanding conditions – and the results with ICL consistently impressed us when compared with other options.
That’s why I don’t think ICL should be framed as a last resort – something you offer only when laser or corneal-based procedures aren’t possible. Those procedures are excellent, and I’m not diminishing them, but ICL deserves to be presented as a top-tier option, not an afterthought.
Finally, surgeons often underestimate patient willingness to pay. Many assume it’s only for wealthy patients, but in my New York practice – where many patients are working-class immigrants – I’ve seen people with modest incomes choose ICL because they value the quality and the results. When patients understand the benefits, they’ll plan, save, and use payment options. Just like premium cataract lenses, you can’t predict who will invest in it unless you offer it to everyone who is a good candidate.
When you train and mentor surgeons, what’s the one principle you push hardest?
As a surgeon and as a leader, you can’t lose your composure. In the operating room, if the surgeon becomes anxious or impatient, the entire environment changes. The staff gets nervous, and the patient – who is often awake – picks up on that tension immediately. The situation can spiral quickly.
The military taught me to stay focused and narrow my attention to what’s directly in front of, or next to, me. You may not be able to see the full picture in the moment, but you can always identify the next two or three steps that will matter right now. Sometimes all it takes is a moment of courage – 20 seconds – to shift the outcome from failure to success. And that courage becomes possible when you’ve trained enough that you can rely on your fundamentals.
That’s exactly what I try to teach when I train surgeons. Many are understandably nervous, especially because these are often young patients with healthy eyes and a pristine, clear lens. It doesn’t feel like cataract surgery where the lens is already compromised. The stakes feel higher, and the fear of causing harm is real.
So, I reassure them: there’s nothing that can happen today that I haven’t already seen or dealt with myself. I’ve made every mistake you can make, and I’ve learned how to recover from them. That’s not said to normalize errors, but to remove fear and shame from the learning process. There will be no judgment from me – only problem-solving.
When surgeons realize they’re supported and that setbacks are manageable, they settle down, think clearly, and perform better. In my experience, calm plus optimism is a powerful combination. It’s the foundation for good decisions, good outcomes, and strong teams.
What keeps you motivated – and what do you want your legacy in ophthalmology to be?
I want to be remembered as someone who put others first – especially in training and mentorship. I’ve always tried to show up for surgeons, not just in scheduled meetings or formal settings, but whenever they need support. I tell surgeons at every stage – whether they’re new to the procedure or highly experienced – “Call me anytime. Text me anytime.” And I mean it. My phone is effectively on 24/7, and I’ve often taken calls in the middle of the night when someone needed help.
Part of that is practical: I travel constantly, often across time zones, so “normal hours” don’t really apply to me. But the bigger reason is that I want surgeons to know they’re not alone. I want them to feel they have a colleague they can rely on – someone who will answer, who will talk them through a challenge, and who has been through enough to help them find the next step.
I’ve even had surgeons step out of the operating room to call me, just hoping I’d pick up. Hearing that reminds me what this work is about: being a steady backup, a trusted resource, and a genuine support system for others.
