He could not live normally without glasses or lenses and he believed that there was no cure for his problem. Today, he knows that there is one, as well as he knows what the shades of color in the eyes of dear friends look like. The most important thing for a good journalist is to be self-confident at all times. That’s what Nemanja Velikić looks like, ready to inform the viewers about health topics at any time. But, until recently, one topic was taboo to him.

Optical aids have been an integral part of my life for 20 years. I say aids because I alternately wore contact lenses and glasses. I couldn’t imagine a day without them. The most difficult was in the lower grades of primary school. There were no plastic glasses at the time, so I often broke my glasses. I was small for lenses. Every trip to summer or winter holidays meant adaptation. Entering the water, in a swimming pool or skiing in winter, included glasses. Due to work in front of the camera, I often had aversions and anxiety that my lens would move or fall out while reading, says Nemanja Velikić.

He became acquainted with the possibilities of refractive surgery for the first time about ten years ago. At that time, he was not able to undergo that intervention.

Some of the doctors told me that it was impossible to fix my problem with any intervention and to accept that it was the way it was. I slowly began to lose hope that I would ever be able to watch without aids. In a short time period, I heard two stories from people who have no points of contact, except that they were both operated by dr Mirko Jankov. They told me what a successes he had in our country and in the world, and how difficult cases he solved.

I wanted to meet the doctor personally and already during the first handshake I knew it was it. Dr Jankov radiates expertise, professionalism and trust. When you have a very few of something, you are afraid that you might lose even that few. In addition to his expertise, the doctor must also have that something because of which you would entrust him that “few”. That’s exactly what I felt with dr Jankov, explains Nemanja.

The journalist was not afraid of the intervention itself, although there was uncertainty about what everything would look like, whether he would immediately see, when the glasses would become part of his past… At the time when he was considering whether to ever go to such an intervention, the moment of decision took away the fear.

Thanks to the medical staff of LaserFocus, from the moment you enter the dark room and preoperative preparation, you feel like you are visiting your best friends. The ambiance and atmosphere that prevails in LaserFocus, and even in the surgical block, are far from being even similar to a hospital. After 15 minutes of preparation, you enter the hall where dr Jankov’s team is waiting for you. The intervention itself takes about five minutes and there is not literally even a P of pain. The only thing that is present is a pleasant feeling of hydration. Since getting up from the operating table, I have been trying to find a term that would describe that feeling, and I cannot find it. Let’s use the word crystal, as the closest one to define the quality of vision I have now.

The best way to describe how much I am pleased by this change is the feeling like I’ve never even worn glasses.

She got used to glasses and lenses since childhood and couldn’t function without them. Now she realized that she can and she enjoys her clear view.

From evening to evening, she enters our homes to wish us a good evening. While greeting the viewers of TV Pink, conveying fresh news from the country and abroad, Bojana Lilić captivates with her beauty, elegance, and style. Once, Bojana was chosen as one of the three most beautiful TV presenters, and it can rightly be said that her extremely beautiful eyes radiate an irresistible glow. No one would have ever thought that Bojana had ever had vision problems.

Since childhood, I got used to wear glasses, and then lenses. I have been wearing them since I was fourteen. I accepted that because there was no other solution, just the hope that it would change at some point. When I started working on television, I started having quite frequent problems, from constantly red eyes, and torture with frequent inflammations. As better generations of lenses were appearing, I’ve been frequently changing them, from the hard version, which I immediately rejected because it was not suitable for my eye, to the soft lenses that I was changing daily. The possibility of a laser diopter correction made the beautiful young Bojana happy. She heard about refractive laser surgery that can release her from wearing lenses several years ago.

I admit that I was very scared because I did not know the process of intervention and consequently I did not dare to take that step. I was afraid that a mistake was possible and that would probably make myself an even bigger problem. A -7 diopter and lenses were my reality and I was ready to wear them my whole life. At one point, I realized that I should at least hear the experts and give my eyes that chance.

On the recommendation of a friend, who is also an ophthalmologist, she came to the LaserFocus Center for Eye Microsurgery and met dr Mirko Jankov and the clinic staff.

Dr. Jankov approached me as a friend, directly, introduced me to every step of the operation, all the benefits and advantages of the surgery, and thus, relaxed me and gave me the security I necessarily needed. I was also pleasantly surprised that I met a great team there, all the staff of the clinic was absolutely professional, very kind, and ready to answer any of my questions at any time. The atmosphere and conditions for the patient in the clinic are very pleasant, which is also important when you want trust and security in such an important operation. I was no longer afraid of the intervention. After a detailed examination, that included precise analyzes and measurements, and conversations with dr Jankov, I knew exactly what would happen in the operating room, and how the intervention itself would go, so there was no occasion for fear, says Bojana.

A week before the intervention, in order for the eye to rest and prepare, she stopped wearing lenses, so she used glasses. On the day of the operation, she arrived at LaserFocus one hour before the intervention. She received anesthesia in the form of drops, and then the operation began.

The intervention itself is painless and absolutely comfortable. Dr. Jankov guided me through the whole course, and after 17 seconds on one eye, and 20 seconds on the other, the intervention was over. I got my sunglasses, and after arranging a checkup, I walked home. My life has fundamentally changed, I can freely say that since the intervention I live a new life, easier, more beautiful, my eyes are absolutely healthy, I do my job with ease and security, and the family sees a gleam in the eyes that means satisfaction and happiness. Once again, many thanks to dr Jankov and the staff of the LaserFocus clinic, for a new life and new eyes.

Bojana Lilić – journalist and host of TV Pink

I am happy to be able to attach a slightly different “testimony” about my experience with the LASIK intervention at the LaserFocus Clinic in Belgrade and about dr Mirko Jankov.

I have been living in Toronto (Canada) for 15 years and I have been wearing glasses for 28 long years. Because of an incident of a ‘foreign body in the eye’ that was solved in the emergency unit when I was a little girl, because of the movie ” A Clockwork Orange” by Stanley Kubrick (I know, I know how it sounds now!), I just never tried to wear lenses… Even applying makeup or if an eyelashe would fall into the eye, it could be an ‘incident’ for me. I guess it must be called a kind of phobia… Anyway, the frames of the best designers have eased the ‘difficulty’ of wearing glasses for the last 15 years, literally every moment I was awake.

The thought of LASIK did not occur to me, precisely because of those, although only a few minutes, as I was informed, where I would be awake, the eye open and the intervention takes place with my full awareness… that was simply out of question!

The moment of decision came easily and for one reason only: Mirko Jankov, my best school friend that I know since he was six, with whom I sat in the bench for almost 12 years of primary and secondary school, became a world expert on LASIK and opened a clinic in Belgrade – LaserFocus. A few phone and Skype calls headed off even the last suspicion. I’m coming…

How fantastic it is to have perfect eyesight immediately after the operation, how much the whole Laser Focus team is ahead of its time by the attitude towards the patient and the latest achievements of the technique they possess, expertise and friendly treatment, every other ‘testimony’ will confirm. It is a “world” dream team, which could easily be located in Toronto, New York, Paris and still be better established than many. For example, my husband had a LASIK intervention just a month before me, at a clinic in Toronto that takes care of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team as well as the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Seeing the treatment of patients in that elite Canadian clinic, LaserFocus, in my opinion, would easily win the first place if I would compare all the stages that a patient goes through from pre-op examination, through the intervention itself to post-op recovery and examination. But you have already heard all this from other satisfied patients.

The ‘new’ thing my story brings is how dr Mirko Jankov was a perfectionist from an early age – a boy interested in science, simply fascinated by physics, especially when we were learning about geometric optics. I must mention that in the exemplary Elementary School “Vladislav Ribnikar”, and later in the Eighth (today the Third) Belgrade Gymnasium, we always had some frightening professors of physics. And while we, ordinary high school students, were afraid of that teaching (Biljana Milinković, I hope you read these lines!), Mirko was the student who asked and asked to find out not more, but EVERYTHING on the topic of prisms, anatomy of the eye, refraction of light, often adding what he himself read somewhere and learned… Yes, our professors were amazed too!

In addition to that, every day, after doing homework, our choir rehearsals, practicing with an air rifle, or marathon tours of preference, a few hours would be dedicated to practicing the guitar.

That is why it is not surprising that today, dr Mirko Jankov is a world-renowned specialist, self-confident, versatile, interesting interlocutor and in addition to that a pleasant, normal man, a wonderful husband, and a great dad, who again has the time, knowledge, patience to treat you and your eyesight as if you were the only one in the world… All his knowledge and years of research, published scientific thesis, improvements in technology, versatility, are fully dedicated to you and your health – in my opinion, it is the most important thing to know when you entrust your sight to someone.

Because of all this, to me the strongest impression from LASIK was the intervention itself:

After years of that uncomfortable fear caused by a foreign body in the eye, and the intervention, the LaserFocus team performs all the necessary examinations and measurements in the pre-operative phase. Then you hear the details of the procedure at least twice, which are slowly becoming a family topic from complicated science. Dressed in a ‘protective apron’ from head to foot, so that the hygiene wouldn’t be compromised during the intervention, sitting in comfortable leather armchairs, I get 2 drops of anesthetic and I hear for the third time the details about the course of LASIK intervention from dr Tina Mraković. In a knowledgeable, but the humane and rather witty tone, she answers my questions and the questions of two other patients who are waiting to correct their vision. Every panic stops for me there and I know that it is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

However, the ‘icing on the cake’ is the intervention itself, which not only does not hurt, but it is so predictable (since the patient gets there prepared) that when dr Jankov announces in one half-whisper what is happening at that moment, you are a witness to a process where everything is occurring according to protocol, without any lack of comfort, without pain and without fear. And then, when I found out that both eyes were corrected during the same procedure, the only thing I thought about is that we are privileged because we have a top expert with a phenomenal character and a great reputation right here, in Belgrade (and Sarajevo, Budva, and Sao Paolo). All in all, besides the birth of my three sons, this is certainly one of the most wonderful experiences I ever had. In other words, if LASIK was a sport, we would gather in front of the Assembly to “welcome” dr Mirko Jankov. “

I got the idea that I could correct my vision with a laser a couple of years ago, but I gave myself time to find out as much as possible about it, especially whether I am a “candidate” for this type of intervention, to find out exactly what are the risks and what are the results, who are the leading experts in this field and what are the opportunities.

As nothing is accidental, I heard from an acquaintance about the name of dr Jankov, so after an Internet search, I found information about the clinic and at that moment I decided to go for an examination. The very next day I said goodbye to my reading glasses! The whole experience for me was completely fascinating, science fiction in the best sense of the word! In my case, the intervention was performed only on the right eye. I would like to emphasize that everything happens very quickly, very simply and without any mystery for us laymen, considering that during that operation, which lasts only a few minutes, dr Jankov communicates with the patient in the most usual way.

As a rule, the postoperative course goes unnoticed, because the happiness for the achieved result is primary! I am satisfied, no, I am very lucky to have found a clinic that works thoroughly and according to the highest world standards, including as the “brain” of the LaserFocus Center, Mirko Jankov, so do his colleagues and kind employees who greatly contribute to this nice impression!

Anica Dobra, LASIK, Belgrade

I began wearing glasses at the age of ten. I was advised to wear lenses due to my worsened vision condition. Since that day my daily routine included inserting and removing my contact lenses, scratchy eyes, eyestrain. Through my university days, my vision deteriorated to -11D (diopters) prompting me to decide to undergo refractive surgery. I was greatly disappointed by the doctors’ opinion that under the best scenario the outcome might be – 3D. At the time, I felt great the doctors’ indifference but then, luckily, I learned about Dr. Mirko Jankov, whom I have met shortly afterward.

I enter the surgery on the appointed date without lenses and spectacles. I see two persons in green standing, and I know that one of them is the doctor, but I cannot see them. After the procedure, through which I was carefully guided by the doctor who spoke to me all the time explaining what he was doing, I get up and see all the people around me. For the first time I experienced something like that when I was ten, and now. Words cannot describe my enthusiasm when the doctor told me that I am no longer spectacle dependent. Still, two months after the surgery, I did not lose my habit of looking for my glasses in the morning, reaching out with my hand, and every time I get pleasantly surprised to open my eyes and see.

I extend my great gratitude to Dr. Mirko Jankov! I will never forget his saying: ” The technology is of top quality, but I will add 110% of my share. This is how it was!
I wish to thank the girls in LaserFocus who stood by me all the way and to Dr. Vesna for patiently answering all my questions.

Thanks immensely.
Natalija Pojatar, Valjevo Serbia