About Our Department

The University of Illinois Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences is dedicated to combating vision loss and blindness by providing the most advanced and compassionate patient care, conducting exemplary research, and offering the best possible physician and resident education programs.

Department physicians deliver highly specialized patient care with compassion to those who are losing or have lost their vision. Researchers are identifying the underlying causes of blinding eye diseases—the first step in finding a cure—and are developing novel diagnostic tools, clinical interventions and applications of emerging technologies to treat eye diseases.

Just as importantly, the Department is committed to ensuring that the next generation of clinicians and scientists are equipped with superb ophthalmologic knowledge.

In 2008, the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary celebrated its 150th anniversary. The Chicago Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary was founded in May 1858, became the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1871 and joined the College of Physicians and Surgeons—the predecessor of today’s College of Medicine—in 1882. The Infirmary is the oldest constituent unit of the University of Illinois.

• The Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, the patient care and teaching center of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, sees 55,000 patients each year on the UIC Medical Center Campus and at satellite offices in downtown Chicago and the Millennium Park Eye Center.
  
  
• The full time clinical faculty of 14 MDs and 3 ODs forms the core attending staff for the Infirmary’s General Eye Clinic and nine subspecialties.
  
  
• Our physicians are named Top Doctors™ and Best Doctors in America™ each year.
  
  
• Department faculty conduct a wide range of laboratory-based and patient-based research studies in ophthalmology. More than a dozen clinical studies and trials are regularly underway in the department as well, including four NEI-funded study centers.
  
  
• Medical students, residents and clinical fellows receive training in the department under the direction of 35 full-time clinical and research faculty, many of whom are recognized as leaders in their area of specialization. The department's residency program is among the most sought after in the country, with 600 applications for the six positions available in 2008.

For 150 years, the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary has served the neediest patients, including those without the means to pay for quality care and those whose eye conditions demand the most expert, specialized care possible. Our heritage as a charitable institution and our modern role as an academic medical center require the capacity and flexibility to provide care to economically marginalized, low income and Medicaid patients as well as patients who are referred to us because their complex, critical needs demand the highly specialized care our physicians can provide.