Eye Ball Glamour

Kieran Walsh

It was during a conversation with a Maintenance Engineer for his Aesthetic Laser Clinics that Kieran Walsh decided that Eye Laser Clinics were the way of the future, his future!

Born in Ballyvolnae, Cork in 1974, 33 years old Kieran Walsh knew he was destined for the world of business, the only question and challenge was what business to chose and which road to take first.

After completing Business Studies in CIT, Walsh started to investigate the different businesses that he could start-up. Through his then girlfriend Laura, (now his wife) who was a beautician, he started to get interested in Aesthetic Laser Clinics with Laura educating him on the dos and don’t’s of the beauty industry. After much research including talking to the top people in the industry - Danish Dermalogical Development (DDD), Walsh decided to make his first move into an industry he knew little about, but knew he would succeed in.

CUTTING EDGE

Having bought his first home at the tender age of 21, Walsh remortgaged a year later in 1996 to set up his first clinic, The Advanced Laser Light at South Terrace Medical Centre, Cork. Constantly updating equipment and being at the cutting edge of his business, Walsh took the big step to expand by opening two more Advanced Laser Light Clinics, one in Ely Place, Dublin and the other in Hartstone Street, Limerick.

Whilst discussing laser equipment one day with his Maintenance Engineer the conversation moved to Eye Laser Equipment. Walsh went on the research trail again, which brought him to the top laser clinics in Munich and the States. Through his research he heard a lot of mention of Patrick Condon, medical director of Waterford Eye Specialists. Condon’s primary specialty is in cataract and refractive surgery, with secondary expertise in general ophthalmology. Condon pioneered the development of LASIK in Ireland and the U.K. starting in the Mater Hospital, Dublin, in 1994 with previous experience in ALK.

MENTOR

Walsh discussed his plans of setting up an Eye Laser Clinic with Condon who agreed to advise him and which he still does to this day. “It was from these discussions and through the knowledge that hundreds of patients in Munster were travelling every year to Dublin for surgery that Eye Laser Ireland was born,” he says. On 13th May 2005 Kieran married his childhood sweetheart Laura Murphy and on May 16th, he opened the doors of Eye Laser Ireland on Model Farm Road, Cork. Kieran felt that his clinic had to promise the best, the best technology that money could buy and the best most experienced surgeons possible. His team included well established Irish surgeons.

VISION CORRECTION

Walsh feels that his success has been in part been due to his location, situated in the city centre, it gave easy access to Corkonians and travellers from Limerick and the rest of Munster. His other reasoning behind his success he feels is thanks to the introduction of Intralase. “Exclusive to Eye Laser Ireland is the Intralase Femto-Second Laser - Intralase is the single most important advance in vision correction since the invention of the Excimer laser. Intralase uses a new form of laser energy for ultimate safety, sterility and precision, and not a blade, as in traditional methods. Intralase delivers micron-level accuracy over a 100 times greater than that of the blade giving the surgeon more control during the procedure and the ability to establish precise dimension thickness of the corneal flap factors which are critical to a successful outcome,”he explains.

This level of safety and precision is unparalleled by any other technology in vision correction surgery. Intralase allows surgeons to tailor the corneal flap for each individual patient and each individual eye. Because of its consistent accuracy, Intralase may make eye laser surgery a viable option at Eye Laser Ireland even for patients who previously didn’t qualify, such as those with thin corneas.

CUSTOMISED

The Eye Laser Ireland Clinics are one of the few to offer customised procedures and have definitely raised the bar for all other eye clinics in Ireland. Walsh feels that Cork people welcomed the clinic with open arms because it promised the best care and delivered on that promised and three years on there is still a lengthy waiting list for procedures. “During its infancy Eye Laser Ireland did not advertise all business came from word of mouth and with it came a lot of business from Limerick which encouraged Kieran to open a second clinic so in April 2006 Eye Laser Ireland opened its doors in O’Connell Street, Limerick.”

PIONEERING APPROACH

2008 promises to be Walsh’s busiest year to date with a new Eye Clinic at the Rockfield Medical Campus, in Dundrum, Dublin, with a lot more competition from the high street clinics he once again sought out the best. He has spent the past three years keeping on the pulse of eye laser developments, attending at least four conferences a year and ensuring his clinics are constantly up to date on new procedures and equipment, he became known on the conference circuit. Through attending these conferences Walsh built up a relationship with one of the most well known Eye Surgeons, Professor Michael O’Keeffe.

Professor O’Keeffe, FRCS, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in London and Edinburgh pioneered Refractive Surgery here in Ireland in 1992.  The author of nearly 200 peer review publications he lectures worldwide in both refractive and paediatric ophthalmology.  He has an international reputation for his research in paediatrics and refractive surgery and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Claud Worth travelling fellowship.  At conference in San Diego, he approached O’Keeffe with his plans for a state of the art Eye Clinic in Dundrum with equipment to cover a multitude of specialist procedures and O’Keeffe showed his interest and now attends at the Clinic.

Walsh has been lucky–he has had a great family support and good friends and exceptional advisers with him along his way. He has already set himself another challenge to open two more Eye Clinics over the next eighteen months one in Galway and one in Belfast both to come to the same exceptional standard as his three existing clinics.

Published in the February/March 2008 Issue of Irish Entrepreneur