Paul keeps surgery skills sharp with pro bono work

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Eye surgeon turned U.S. Sen. Rand Paul kept his medical skills sharp Tuesday by removing cataracts from four uninsured patients — pro bono.

The Republican was a longtime ophthalmologist in Bowling Green before he was elected to the Senate in 2010. The tea party darling said he has found his pro bono work during Senate recesses especially rewarding because the patients, lacking insurance, often have put off treatment and have developed extremely poor vision.

"They end up being probably the happiest people you'll ever meet," Paul said.

Kentucky resident Tim Wagner, a 41-year-old self-employed carpenter who has no health insurance, is one of those happy people. Paul removed a cataract from Wagner's right eye last month.

"I couldn't see out of it," Wagner said Tuesday. "Everything was just a blur."

Wagner had gone to a southeastern Kentucky doctor to ask about having the surgery and setting up a payment plan to cover the cost. Instead, that doctor recommended Paul, who fully restored Wagner's vision.

"It didn't cost me anything," he said. "I never even got to tell him thank you. But it was a blessing to me."

Paul had hoped to continue working as an eye surgeon part time after his election, but ethics rules don't allow physicians elected to the Senate to bill for their services, making it financially difficult to stay in practice.

"It's one of the things I really didn't anticipate," Paul said. "I didn't know the rules would be so stringent."

Paul has teamed up with ophthalmologists in Corbin, Glasgow and Paducah who do the pre-surgery screenings and who schedule the procedures in surgical centers in those communities.

Paul said the patients aren't the only ones who benefit from the surgeries. It allows him to remain active in the medical profession that he intends to return to in the future.

"It's nice for people who don't have insurance to get their cataracts done, and it does help me to stay in practice," he said. "I've told people I believe we need more citizen politicians who do come home. Unfortunately, many doctors get up there and get too far away from it."

The result is that physicians who serve in Washington often drop out of their practices when they return home.

"I'm not faulting them for that," Paul said in Paducah where he did the surgeries. "I'm just saying it's hard to do your job up there, continue doing some surgery, and stay in practice."