Wills Eye Hospital | |
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Geography | |
Location | 840 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
Organization | |
Type | Specialist |
Affiliated university | Thomas Jefferson University |
Services | |
Speciality | Ophthalmology |
History | |
Opened | 1832 |
Links | |
Website | http://www.willseye.org |
Lists | Hospitals in Pennsylvania |
Wills Eye Hospital is a non-profit eye clinic and hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1832 and is the oldest continually operating eye-care facility in the United States. It is the ophthalmology residency program for Thomas Jefferson University.
Since 1990, Wills Eye Hospital has consistently been ranked one of the top three ophthalmology hospitals in the United States by U.S. News & World Report and its ophthalmology residency program is considered one of the most competitive residency programs in the world. [1]
James Wills Jr., a Quaker merchant, was instrumental in the founding of Wills Eye through his bequest of $116,000 in 1832 to the City of Philadelphia. Wills stipulated that the funds were to be used specifically for the indigent, blind, and lame. Over the years it evolved into solely an eye hospital. The first Wills Hospital opened in 1834 on Logan Square at 18th & Race Streets.
Early surgeons at Wills Eye included Isaac Parrish, M.D. and Isaac Hays, MD, [2] George Fox, M.D., and Squier Littell, M.D., who in 1837 wrote "A Manual of Diseases of the Eye." [3] In 1854, Littell also co-edited "A Treatise on Operative Ophthalmic Surgery" with Henry Haynes Walton. [4]
Wills Eye Hospital | |
Coordinates | 39°57′48″N75°9′56″W / 39.96333°N 75.16556°W |
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Area | 0.8 acres (0.32 ha) |
Built | 1931-1932 |
Architect | John T. Windrim |
Architectural style | Federal Tuscan |
NRHP reference No. | 84003582 [5] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | July 12, 1984 |
Designated PHMC | October 9, 2009 [6] |
The Centennial Building of Wills Eye Hospital was designed by architect John T. Windrim and built in 1931-1932. It is a six-story, brick building measuring 154 by 157 feet (47 by 48 m). The front facade features a portico with eight Tuscan order columns. [7] The building is now residential apartments.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. [5]
Wills Eye has pioneered many techniques in the field of ophthalmology, including:
Ophthalmology is a clinical and surgical specialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. A former term is oculism.
Charles David Kelman was an American ophthalmologist, surgeon, inventor, jazz musician, entertainer, and Broadway producer. Known as the father of phacoemulsification, he developed many of the medical devices, instruments, implant lenses and techniques used in cataract surgery. In the early 1960s, he began the use of cryosurgery to remove cataracts and repair retinal detachments. Cryosurgery for cataracts remained in heavy use until 1978, when phacoemulsification, a procedure Kelman also developed in 1967, became the modern standard treatment. Kelman was given the National Medal of Technology by President George H. W. Bush and recognized as the Ophthalmologist of the Century by the International Congress of Cataract and Refractive Surgery in Montreal, Canada. He was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, and received the 2004 Lasker Award.
Sir Nicholas Harold Lloyd Ridley was an English ophthalmologist who invented the intraocular lens and pioneered intraocular lens surgery for cataract patients.
Rayner designs and manufactures intraocular lenses and proprietary injection devices for use in cataract surgery. With Sir Harold Ridley, they were pioneers in the field from 1949 when Ridley successfully implanted the first intraocular lens (IOL) at St Thomas' Hospital, London.
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE) is located at East 14th Street and Second Avenue in lower Manhattan, New York City. Founded on August 14, 1820, NYEE is America's first specialty hospital and one of the most prominent in the fields of ophthalmology and otolaryngology in the world, providing primary inpatient and outpatient care in those specialties. Previously affiliated with New York Medical College, as of 2013 it is affiliated with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as a part of the membership in the Mount Sinai Health System.
Eliakim Littell was an American editor and publisher, the founder of a long-lived periodical named Littell's Living Age (1844-1941).
Jerry A. Shields is an ophthalmologist practicing at the Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, specializing in ocular oncology. He is also a professor at Thomas Jefferson University.
Stephen Updegraff, M.D., FACS is an American refractive surgeon best known for his early involvement in, and contributions to, LASIK. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a board-certified member of the American Board of Ophthalmology, a founding member of the American College of Ophthalmic Surgeons, and a member of the International Society of Refractive Surgery, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, and the Pine Ridge Eye Study Society. Updegraff currently serves as the medical director of Updegraff Vision in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Gholam A. Peyman is an Iranian American ophthalmologist, retina surgeon, and inventor. He is best known for his invention of LASIK eye surgery, a vision correction procedure designed to allow people to see clearly without glasses. He was awarded the first US patent for the procedure in 1989.
Bascom Palmer Eye Institute is the University of Miami School of Medicine's ophthalmic care, research, and education center. The institute is based in the Health District of Miami, Florida, and has been ranked consistently as the best eye hospital and vision research center in the nation.
Isaac Hays was an American ophthalmologist, medical ethicist, and naturalist. A founding member of the American Medical Association, and the first president of the Philadelphia Ophthalmological Society, Hays published the first study of non-congential colorblindness and the first case of astigmatism in America. He was editor or co-editor of The American Journal of the Medical Sciences for over 50 years.
Eric John Arnott, MA, FRCS, FRCOphth was a British ophthalmologist and surgeon who specialized in cataracts, a condition which in many parts of the world still remains the principal cause of blindness. He is known for inventing new surgical techniques for treatment of various ophthalmological disorders, and received professional awards for his contributions.
Raymond Mark Stein, MD, FRCSC, DABO, is a Canadian ophthalmologist. He practices refractive and cataract surgery. He is the medical director of the Bochner Eye Institute in Toronto, Ontario and Chief of Ophthalmology at the Scarborough General Hospital.
Julia A. Haller is an American ophthalmologist who is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. She also holds the William Tasman, M.D. Endowed Chair at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, where she is Ophthalmologist-in-Chief.
Joel S. Schuman, MD, FACS is Professor of Ophthalmology, the Kenneth L. Roper Endowed Chair, Vice Chair for Research Innovation, co-director of the Glaucoma Service at Wills Eye Hospital, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Collaborative Community of Ophthalmic Imaging (CCOI) president, and American Glaucoma Society (AGS) Foundation advisory board chair. Prior to this he was the Elaine Langone Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at NYU Langone Medical Center, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Professor of Neural Science in the Center for Neural Science at NYU College of Arts and Sciences. He chaired the ophthalmology department at NYU Langone Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine 2016–2020, and was Vice Chair for Ophthalmology Research in the department 2020–2022. Prior to arriving at NYU in 2016, he was Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Ophthalmology, Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology, Director of UPMC Eye Center (2003-2016) and before that was at Tufts University 1991–2003, where he was Residency Director (1991-1999) and Glaucoma and Cataract Service Chief (1991-2003). In 1998 he became Professor of Ophthalmology, and Vice Chair in 2001.
The Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) was created in 1995 by Dr. Geoffrey Tabin and Dr. Sanduk Ruit with a goal of establishing a sustainable eye care infrastructure in the Himalaya. HCP empowers local doctors to provide ophthalmic care through skills-transfer and education. From its beginning, HCP responds to a pressing need for eye care in the Himalayan region. With programs in Nepal, Ethiopia, Ghana, Bhutan and India they have been able to restore sight to over 1.4 million people since 1995.
The USC Gayle and Edward Roski Eye Institute, part of Keck School of Medicine of USC, is a center for ophthalmic care, research and education located in downtown Los Angeles, California. It has subsidiary clinics in Pasadena, Beverly Hills and Arcadia. It was allied with the Doheny Eye Institute from 1975 until 2013, when Doheny allied with University of California Los Angeles.
Gerd Uwe Auffarth is a German eye surgeon and is Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Heidelberg University Eye Hospital and Head of the David J. Apple Center for Vision Research which includes the David J. Apple International Laboratory for Ocular Pathology.
Dr. William Tasman (1929–2017) an American ophthalmologist, was the ophthalmologist-in-chief at Wills Eye Hospital His work had a profound impact on the treatment of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). He served as the president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the president of the American Ophthalmological Society, the president of the Retina Society, the editor for Duane's Clinical Ophthalmology, and the editor for Survey of Ophthalmology,
Danièle Aron-Rosa is a French-Tunisian ophthalmologist and physician-scientist most known for developing the picosecond, ophthalmic Nd:YAG laser for eye surgeries. She has been called one of the two most respected laser pioneers in ophthalmology, alongside Franz Fankhauser. She is also a painter, using the pseudonym Genskof or Aron Genskof, and has works in the permanent collections of museums in France and the United States.
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