Having been born in San Diego to a sailor father whom I traveled the world with in my early years, Utah was the last place I ever would have thought of as being a leader in surgical techniques and technology. But after spending some time in the desert state, I've been pretty impressed with the level of health professionalism around here.

The University of Utah Hospital is a leader in cardiology, implanting the first artificial heart. After a motorcycle accident landed me in one of the hospital's beds, I discovered that the University Hospital is also home to one of the foremost experts in neurosurgery who would often be consulted on by doctors from Stanford and even the much-praised Mayo Clinic. Later on, I found out that some of the world's top plastic surgeons make their home in Salt Lake City as well.

So I guess I wasn't too particularly surprised when I discovered that when it comes to vision correction, Lasik surgery in Utah is among the top choices for patients around the nation. One Lasik surgeon in particular, Dr. Brian Davis, has done some groundbreaking work in the field of Lasik surgery and beyond.

Okay, so if you've looked at Lasik at all you know that the current technique is to cut open a flap to get access to the cornea. Guess who pioneered that technique?

There was a time that I remember well when any kind of refractive surgery on the eye was considered quite a gamble. News magazines were wrought with stories about people losing their vision or coming out with vision much worse than before. Certainly, the early days of Lasik carried some bad stigma. This did little to deter Dr. Davis who continued his pioneering work, perfecting the technique and going on to perform over 18,000 Lasik surgeries in Utah.

If you're looking for the best in Lasik surgery, you might think you'd be lucky to get a pioneer of the procedure to work on you personally. And that's where the good news comes in. Dr. Davis continues in private practice today, doing Lasik surgery in Utah from his Salt Lake City office.

As kids, we always want to grow older faster. But then when we grow up, we can't but help to wish that everything would slow down. And one of the major side effects of growing older that we are always trying to counter is the fact that our bodies are in a state of very slow decay. In other words, as we get older everything deteriorates.

Fortunately, there are some things that we are able to counter quite effectively. Combating deterioration of vision is one area where there has been a lot of research and technology developed. Two of the most common eye diseases that people develop as they age are cataracts and glaucoma.

My grandmother developed cataracts after reaching her early eighties. Upon reporting this to my eye doctor, she told me my family's history was nothing to be concerned about. "If we are so lucky to live that long, we'll all eventually get cataracts," she told me.

A cataract, which blocks light from entering the eye, is related to the deterioration of the body. As cells within the eye die, they don't get absorbed by the body and instead begin to form a barrier within your eye's lens. At first, vision becomes cloudy and, left untreated, will eventually lead to blindness and even glaucoma.

The treatment, as my grandmother became quite familiar with, is to simply go into the eye's lens and remove the dead cells -- which unfortunately cannot be done without removing the lens itself, after which it is replaced with a rather effective artificial lens -- allowing light to pass through and restoring most of a patient's vision. The slow development of a cataract means that many people don't realize they are forming until they are well developed.

While cataract surgery sounds pretty nasty, it's actually quite safe and is a very common procedure. As mentioned earlier, left untreated a cataract can result in the onset of glaucoma which attacks the optic nerve itself and therefore is more difficult to treat effectively. Surgery and medicated eye drops can help alleviate symptoms or stop progression of the disease, but regaining vision lost to glaucoma is as of yet irreversible. Consequently, glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world.

The key to avoiding any severe vision loss is to see your eye doctor regularly. So keep your eyes healthy and give them the care that they need.