Prominent area eye surgeon dies at 53

Dr. David Shoemaker walked into work one day several years ago and saw his fellow eye surgeon at Center for Sight, Dr. Bill Lahners, with his arm in a sling and a cat-ate-the-canary kind of grin. Shoemaker braced himself for a classic Bill Lahners tale, and he got one: turns out his colleague busted up his arm riding a bull in the French Quarter of New Orleans over the weekend.

“He popped his arm back in place and was ready to go work,” recalls Shoemaker, who founded Center for Sight, which is the founding member practice of Sarasota-based US Eye. US Eye includes 53 offices and five ambulatory surgery centers across the Southeast.