When Susan Coates’ beeper goes off in the middle of the night, she no longer has to fumble for glasses or take the time to pop in contact lenses before heading out on an emergency call.

A month ago, the 29-year-old Ames resident became one of the first Iowans to undergo a procedure to have permanent contact lenses implanted within her eyes. An Iowa State University graduate student, she’s also an emergency medical technician and volunteer firefighter for the town of Gilbert.

“It’s pretty remarkable to not have to wear corrective lenses,” said Coates, who said her vision improved to about 20/30 in each eye within 24 hours of the surgery. She had worn glasses, and later contacts, since she was 3. Though she has wanted to have her vision corrected using Lasik, she was told a few years ago she wasn’t a good candidate for that procedure because she was too nearsighted.

The 30-minute procedure, which has been available in Europe for several years, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December. Worldwide, more than 55,000 people have had the procedure done. On June 6, Dr. Daniel Vos at the Wolfe Eye Clinic in Ames became the first surgeon in the state to perform the procedure, operating on three patients that day.

“They’re really excited about this,” said Vos, who said the vision of three of his first four patients is now better than what they were able to achieve with glasses, and the remaining patient’s vision is as good as it had been with glasses.

The procedure is best suited to people who can’t have Lasik because the degree of correction that would be necessary is too great, Vos said. It’s made possible with a product called the Visian Intraocular Collamer Lens, which is implanted in the eye through a small incision made where the cornea meets the white of the eye, positioned in front of the eye’s natural lens.

Vos, who became certified through the American Academy of Ophthalmologists to perform the procedure, has performed a similar procedure numerous times in the past for cataract patients, “so it’s quite familiar to me,” he said.

At $3,200 per eye, Visian ICL is a little more expensive than Lasik and more invasive than that procedure, which involves reducing the thickness of the surface of the cornea. In some cases, Vos said, Lasik may be used after implanting Visian ICL to fine-tune a person’s vision, though he hasn’t had to do that yet.

“We’ve been right on the numbers, which we’re happy about,” he said. Vos said three other eye surgeons have become certified in the procedure, which will make it available at Wolfe Eye Clinic’s Marshalltown, Cedar Rapids and Cedar Falls offices as well.

In a recent U.S. clinical trial, 99.4 percent of patients reported they were satisfied with the results of the procedure three years after having it done.

Vos said he tells patients the risk of developing a serious infection from the operation is between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 3,000, which in a worst-case scenario could result in blindness.

“It’s pretty unusual,” he said. “I’ve seen people who have gotten infections get better, but it’s not something we can expect [will always get better].” Generally, the procedure can also present some added risk to patients who are at risk of retinal detachment, he said.

For Coates, the benefits outweighed the risks.

“My parents, I think, were more nervous than I was,” she said. “I think they’re more comfortable about it now, now that it’s gone well. They didn’t see the point. They said, ‘Why would you take the risk?’ They’ve both worn glasses all their lives.”