Eye surgery

[nutsnbolts]

I am elated to have received my acceptance today and I am anxiously awaiting the fateful start in June! Of course, I have a variety of questions, one of which is a strange one about eye surgery like LASIK or PRK. I’ve got glasses, but I dream of the day where I can see crystal clear again. Does anyone know how I can apply for corrective surgery at my time there? I wouldn’t want to miss out on that. Some questions off the top of my head are:

Do I need to pay anything out of pocket?
Must I have to pursue a pilot or rated slot to be eligible?
If not, can anyone who would like the surgery sign up for it?
When could I get it done?

Obviously I wouldn’t expect to have this done my first year, as cool as that would be. Any experiences or advice from those who know anything would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MullenLE]

When you get there, after Basic, you can go on sick call and they'll evaluate you and explain everything.
Focus on successfully completing Basic now. That will be more than enough on your plate

 

[Bigrod]

They will not fix or pay for this until junior or senior year. Wanting to go rated may be a determining factor but that’s just a guess I don’t know that for sure.

 

[Small_Goose]

During your grad eye exam sophomore year optometry will determine if you are a possible candidate for eye surgery and determine your priority on a few factors. Priority 1: must get surgery in order to qualify for desired job (Pilot, CRO, TACP, etc), or vision is just very poor. Priority 2: Vision is "ok", and/or quite close to the limit of desired job. Priority 3: Vision is pretty good, and does not need surgery for desired job - the surgery is completely elective. This isn't the 100% exact method they use to determine priority, but it is fairly close. Generally, if you wear glasses you will be either Priority 1 or 2.

A few months after your grad eye (I think junior year), you have a second appointment with the surgeon to determine exactly what type of surgery you will need, if your eye is able to be operated on, etc.

From what I have seen, everyone on Priority 1 and 2 that desires surgery gets it, and many Priority 3 as well (sometimes even all of them). However, a word of caution: it is quite rare, but occasionally, complication do occur from these surgeries. Some of these complications can be disqualifying to a number of career fields, including pilot. It would be quite unfortunate to lose your PQ because you had an elective surgery.