The stop-and-chop technique of cataract surgery is a great technique for phaco because it combines the benefits of divide-and-conquer with phaco chop. A single groove is sculpted in the middle of the nucleus which is then cracked into two halves. Each half is then chopped into smaller fragments prior to phaco-aspiration. This is a great stepping stone on your path to learning phaco chop. And for some tough cases with a shallow anterior chamber, I revert from phaco chop to stop-and-chop to create smaller halves for chopping. You can learn about this technique in our free 25 part Curriculum Series and the free CataractCoach Book.
