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A Grateful Patient Honors Her Physician

By the time Janice Evans met Moran’s Mark Mifflin, MD, in 2013, she had a long history of eye problems.

Doctors diagnosed Evans with keratoconus, a potentially blinding corneal disease, at age 11. Now 70, she has had four cornea transplants (three of them in her right eye).

Keratoconus affects one in every 2,000 Americans and is the most common reason for a cornea transplant. The disease causes the cornea, the clear, dome-shaped window in front of the eye, to slowly thin and develop a cone shape over time. Because the cornea focuses light into the eye, the condition causes light rays to go out of focus, blurring and distorting vision. It makes daily activities, such as reading or driving, difficult.

“Keratoconus requires patients to be adaptive and resilient,” explains Mifflin. “It often starts in the late teens or early 20s, but symptoms slowly progress over 10 to 20 years. We can often correct a patient’s vision with glasses or special contact lenses, and the cornea will stabilize. Still, in about 10% to 20% of people, the cornea will eventually become too scarred or will not tolerate a contact lens. If either of these problems occur, we may need to do a transplant.”

A Long & Winding Road to Good Vision

Evans’ keratoconus diagnosis did not come as a surprise. Her father and half of her siblings also have some form of the condition.

Evans could not see with eyeglasses and has worn some form of rigid contact lenses for nearly 60 years. Before her diagnosis, Evans loved playing softball and basketball. She had to stop playing sports as her sight deteriorated.

She worked editing news film during college and later as a broadcast news producer at KSL-TV News in Salt Lake City. By age 21, fuzzy vision in her right eye made reading impossible, and she had her first cornea transplant.

Six years later, she needed a cornea transplant in her left eye and had to turn down an offer to work for CBS News. However, the network waited for her eye to heal and hired her as a producer in the Chicago bureau. She then worked in the Washington, D.C., bureau before returning to KSL.

Cornea transplants can fail for various reasons, including rejection of the donor cornea or other complications. By 2009, Evans had a second cornea transplant in her right eye. By 2013, she needed a third and final one in that eye.

“I liked Dr. Mifflin right away,” she says. “Since it was my third time with that eye, I asked him, ‘How many at-bats do I get?’ He was so kind and direct. Without missing a beat, he told me he has one patient who’s had six. I felt confident with him; he really eased my anxiety. You’re awake when they do the surgery, so I could tell he was a solid leader working with a great team.”

Mifflin has helped Evans manage her vision since that time. When the solicited nominations for 2022 honors, Evans drew on her recent years of experience and deep gratitude to nominate Mifflin. Her story led the NKCF to name him its 2022 Top Doc.

Today, Evans wears rigid scleral contact lenses, lives independently, can drive, and enjoys cooking and reading.

As director of Moran’s Cornea and Refractive Division, chief of surgical services, and associate medical director of the ULEB, Mifflin has a unique perspective on the importance of corneal tissue donation.

“We could not restore sight to patients like Janice without tissue donated through the eye bank,” he says. “This is a life-changing surgery for patients with corneal diseases that span almost all decades of their life. I have greatly appreciated my long association with patients, families, and with the donors who make it possible to keep on trying and, in most cases, succeeding.”