Sarah Wellik: Patient safety remains top of mind after legislative battles
Florida lawmakers chose to protect patients and put their safety first.
This year’s Legislative Session was full of wins and losses for many, but one important group remained at the forefront for Florida’s leaders: patients.
Against the backdrop of a historical economic recovery from a once-in-a-lifetime health crisis that closed our nation, Florida lawmakers chose to protect patients and put their safety first by ensuring that dangerous optometric surgery legislation did not pass.
Senate Bill 876, would have allowed optometrists — who are neither medical doctors nor trained surgeons — to perform dangerous and invasive surgeries without ever going to medical school or surgical residency. Furthermore, it would have provided the Florida Board of Optometry — a regulatory board lacking any medical doctors or surgeons — complete autonomous authority to determine any and all surgeries optometrists could perform with negligible training consisting of as little as a 32-hour weekend course.