getting lasik and re-applying

Antonio

5-Year Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2010
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I was denied a waiver because I have eyesight worse than -8.00 diopters. I am being considered for an ROTC scholarship. Will they pay for me to have lasik, and will I be able to re-apply to West Point next year?
 
Larry Mullen is the expert but . . . and I can only speak for USNA . . . they STRONGLY discourage Lasik or any corrective eye surgery. First, they will take your vision at what it was before it was corrected so you get no benefit in terms of the correction. Second, they said it was extremely unlikely that someone who'd had Lasik would get an "eye" waiver.
 
Your best bet is to cut and paste your posting; provide complete name and last 4 SSN; and send to me in an email at Larry.Mullen@dodmerb.tma.osd.mil. I can assist YOU (specifically) better from there.:thumb:

1. "They" (The Armed Services, DoD, the government will NOT pay for anyone to get corneal refractive surgery (e.g. LASIK) PRIOR to entering the military. At appropritae times thereafter, the Armed Services will perform corneal refractive surgery on appropriate candidates that desire to have the surgery.

2. You can reapply to West Point next year. If the personnel rendering the decision are the same, waivers will NOT be granted for personnel having measurements like you describe below.

3. Just one legal caveat to what USNA 1985 states below. The Department of Defense neither encourages or discourages any forms of treatment, therapy, etc for any medical condition. These are decision strictly between the (in this case) applicants and their medical team. Reason? DoD will NOT assume any liability for any of the treatment, therapies, etc., for which they did not have a responsibility and/or authority to render such a recommendation. What we do provide are the standards that must be met for medical qualificationor the possibility of medical waivers for those standards (case by case basis).
 
^^^

Fair point. Mr. Mullen is correct as always.:thumb: To be more precise . . . USNA admissions states that having Lasik or other corrective eye surgery will not improve your chances for admission and, as a practical matter, probably will have the opposite effect b/c they use your PRE-surgery vision to determine whether to grant waiver and having had surgery can complicate future vision correction.

Obviously, any decision on medical care is a matter between physician and patient. But if you're considering LASIK SOLELY for SA admissions purposes, it won't help you (at least for USNA).
 
PRK

My #1 career that I want to do is be a PJ/CRO, my issue is that my eyesight is −2.25 diopters correction. I think that may be a DQ, BUT I read online on many sources that it is possible to get a waiver for PRK after a year after the surgery, and no complications (at least for PJ/CRO). What I am curious about (and didn’t want to start a new thread about because I realize its one of those question that probably cant be generally answered) is, how difficult is it to get a waiver? As in do they grant the waivers on the successfulness of the procedure? Do they grant them also because of an applicants chances of actually passing the Pipeline (so they won’t grant it to somebody who has fairly low PT scores but may for somebody who has max everything)?

THIS is just a general overall waiver question (the others were more PJ/CRO related), how does DoDMERB determine who gets waivers?

PS: Sorry about the overlap in my questions, I was having difficulty stating what I wanted to say.
 
DODMERB doesn't grant waivers, the individual academies do.

I wasn’t specifically talking about the academies, I meant either ROTC, academy, enlisting, or however I join. I was just talking about that career field in general.
 
I wasn’t specifically talking about the academies, I meant either ROTC, academy, enlisting, or however I join. I was just talking about that career field in general.

The answer still stands. You asked:

"....how does DoDMERB determine who gets waivers?"

DODMERB doesn't determine who gets waivers. DODMERB determines if you meet or do not meet the standard. Waivers are decided by whatever program you are applying to.
 
Luigi59 is exactly correct. See my previous posting (moments ago) regarding shellfish allergies:thumb:
 
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