EyeWorld Asia-Pacific December 2011 Issue

40 December 2011 EW NEWS & OPINION Steven P. Shearing, MD: A pioneer to remember S teven Shearing, MD, was among the first to adopt ECCE; he was the first to implant a compressible posterior chamber IOL—which he developed—in the eye of a living patient. Dr. Shearing passed away on 10 July 2011, at the age 76. EyeWorld invited several of Dr. Shearing’s colleagues and contemporaries to share some of their memories of this pioneer surgeon. David F. Chang, MD: The Shearing 101 Lens (IOLAB Corporation) became the first commercially successful FDA- approved posterior chamber IOL. More importantly, Steve’s J-loop haptic design and its successors established the posterior chamber with posterior capsular fixation as the safest location for the IOL. This ultimately converted remaining ICCE proponents to ECCE. Among many honors, he was the second ASCRS Innovator Lecturer (1986), following Charles Kelman, MD. My memories of Steve are of a thoughtful and inquisitive ophthalmologist whose gentle and unassuming demeanor belied his historic stature as the inventor of the three-piece posterior chamber IOL. Steve was passionate about cataract surgery and even in his retirement kept abreast of the field. He shunned the spotlight and regrettably, very few from my generation ever met him. John Stanley, MD : A graduate of the UCSF residency program, Steve Shearing was a Las Vegas ophthalmologist in solo private practice who conceived of a posterior chamber IOL that he tested in a single eye bank eye. IOLAB, a small Pasadena, Calif.-company, made the first experimental models, which Steve implanted in 27 patients. In the summer of 1977, I examined all of these initial patients and realized the superiority of the design and saw the excellence of the visual results. We became friends at that time, and he eventually asked me to be a witness in a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson that established Steve Shearing as the inventor of the first successful posterior chamber intraocular lens—a milestone in the history of eye surgery. I am saddened by his death. Robert M. Sinskey, MD: Steve Shearing took one of my earliest courses in phacoemulsification and intraocular lenses in 1975. In 1977, Dick Kratz called to tell me about a doctor in Las Vegas who had developed an idea to take the Barraquer anterior chamber lens and put it in the posterior chamber. It had flexible J-loops and he called it the Shearing Lens. I called Steve Shearing in Las Vegas and asked him to bring two of his patients to my course, at my expense, in whom he had implanted his lens into the ciliary sulcus. When we saw Steve’s patients, the lens implant was not visible and the eyes looked like they had not been implanted with an IOL, which was remarkable at the time. Dick Kratz and I ordered 300 lenses from Pete LaHaye, who was the president of IOLAB at the time. From that point on I added Steve to my faculty and he came down monthly for our courses. Naturally we ran into a lot of resistance from academics around the country at the time about putting an anterior lens or an iris-supported lens into the posterior chamber. Dick Kratz and I were able to convince people like Bob Drews, Brad Straatsma, Bill Vallotton, and others by inviting them to the courses to see the lens inserted into the eye and see the results the next day. Later, by modifying the rigid J-loop into the more flexible modified J-loop configuration, which was my contribution, it became the most popular lens in the world for the next 10- 15 years. This didn’t increase adoption of phacoemulsification until Tom Mazzocco thought of making the optic foldable to go through a 3-mm incision. In essence, Shearing made a major breakthrough in the acceptance of intraocular lens implantation as a routine procedure in cataract surgery by making the lens safer and easier to implant. William Simcoe, MD: I am sorry to learn that Steve Shearing passed away. He was a well-known and effective surgeon and teacher. Kenneth C. Westfield, MD (practice associate): We all know the Steve Shearing who developed the compressible posterior chamber IOL and taught phaco courses during the 70s and 80s, but I found a different Steve Shearing when I came to Las Vegas in 1980 to begin my practice. Soon after I opened my office, Steve came by to introduce himself and offer any assistance I might need. I worked for him part time until my own practice volume increased. He was a great mentor not only to me but to other ophthalmologists in Las Vegas. Whether in business or surgery he was always willing to share his vast knowledge and expertise with his colleagues. When I took over his practice in 1999 after his retirement, he would stop by periodically to see how I was running things (probably never quite to his satisfaction). We would go to lunch and talk. However, I only made the mistake of letting Steve drive once. His driving was as famous as his IOL. The one thing I will remember most was his passion, passion for his work, his family, and his friends. He was intense. Stephen McLeod, MD (chair, UCSF Department of Ophthalmology): The Shearing Chair that he funded in the Department of Ophthalmology at UCSF reflected not only his loyalty to his alma mater, but in the description of the chair, was indicative of his priorities and principles. This chair was expected to support through the leadership of a vice chair of the department “the general betterment of the department, including cataract research, microsurgical research and