Message from Chair

On behalf of the Department of Ophthalmology at UW Medicine, thank you for visiting our newly redesigned website.

Despite the significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have continued to pursue our singular mission: to alleviate suffering from eye disease. We continue to do this through our robust research programs, outstanding patient care, educational programs to train the next generation of physicians, and gifts from generous donors and grateful patients. We invite you to learn more about our department.

Our vision scientists are committed to improving diagnosis, treatment, and ultimately finding cures for diseases of the eye and visual system. Collectively, the department published 175 papers during the 2021-22 academic year. This year our department rose to #3 in the nation in NIH funding among ophthalmology departments, and the University of Washington rose to #2 for National Eye Institute funding.

The South Lake Union campus and the Karalis Johnson Retina Center support four pillars of research in its mission to eradicate retinal blindness: advanced optics imaging, computational ophthalmology, accelerating the therapeutic pipeline, and vision restoration research.

Our faculty provide care at eight major sites of practice: the UW Medicine Eye Institute at Harborview; the Harborview Medical Center 4W Clinic (which includes our consult and trauma services); the Eyes on James optical shop; UW Medical Center Eye Center; VA Puget Sound Health Care System (Seattle and American Lake); Seattle Children’s; the Karalis Johnson Retina Center at South Lake Union, and the UW Medicine Primary Care Clinics. Our faculty and trainees provided over 112,000 patient visits and performed over 3,000 surgeries.

The Roger and Angie Karalis Johnson Retina Center at South Lake Union continues to flourish. This center, supported by an incredibly generous gift from Angie Karalis Johnson, opened in January 2019. In the past year, it supported more than 10,000 patient visits and an ambitious research program.

We serve as a major referral center, seeing patients from the five-state WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) region. We continue to provide many services rare in the community, including managing eye cancer (ocular oncology), uveitis, and medical and hereditary retinal disease.

Our faculty remain highly committed to the educational mission of the Department. We currently train 20 residents, five fellows, and scores of medical students annually. Our residency training program remains one of the most competitive in the country.

We appreciate our philanthropic partners, whose generosity accelerates our ability to conduct cutting-edge research, provide excellent patient care, and train the next generation of ophthalmologists.

Meet our Community Action Board, a group of committed volunteers who advance the Department’s mission by serving as ambassadors in our community, advising faculty on matters of strategic importance, and generously supporting our mission with gifts. Philanthropic gifts help to accelerate innovation in the form of seed grants for our faculty research. We are honored and privileged to work with such a fine group of individuals as we aim to eliminate blinding eye disease.

Russell N. Van Gelder, MD, PhD

Boyd K. Bucey Memorial Professor and Chair

Department of Ophthalmology, University of Washington

Director, UW Medicine Eye Institute Director,
UW Vision Science Center