Roberto Zaldívar
Roberto Zaldivar, born May 27, 1957, is an Argentine eye doctor who specializes in refractive (vision-correction) surgery. He helped bring laser eye surgery to Latin America and introduced excimer laser technology there. He developed bioptics, a method that combines phakic intraocular lenses with laser treatment to correct vision.
In 1993 he was the first surgeon in the world to implant a phakic intraocular lens to correct refractive errors. He also helped popularize a combined laser approach in 1992 and created the bioptics technique in 1996. He leads the Instituto Zaldivar in Argentina and founded the Argentine Society of Cataract, Refractive and Corneal Surgery.
His father, Roger Eleazar Zaldivar, was a pioneer who started Argentina's first cornea bank; his son Roger Zaldivar is also an ophthalmologist and the medical director of the Instituto Zaldivar. Roberto is married to Stella Gaibazzi; they have a daughter, Mercedes, and a son, Roger.
The Instituto Zaldivar has branches in Buenos Aires and Asunción, Paraguay. He has received many international awards for refractive surgery, and in 2024 was listed as one of the world's 100 most influential ophthalmologists by The Ophthalmologist magazine.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 01:05 (CET).