Long Island College Hospital
Local director, Wayne March, M.D.
Established in 1858, Long Island College Hospital was one of the nation’s first medical schools and the original site of all SUNY Downstate education programs, including the Ophthalmology Department. Today, LICH is a 515-bed facility located in Brooklyn Heights, across the East River from Lower Manhattan. Its Ophthalmology Service offers comprehensive expert care and currently is the department’s main tertiary care site, with a full spectrum of inpatient and outpatient procedures offered in each subspecialty. Operating facilities include state-of-the-art microsurgical instrumentation, and a recent face-lift of ambulatory facilities featured a comprehensive upgrade of instrumentation. The LICH eye clinic now is equipped with Argon, red-yellow-green, and YAG lasers. Advanced equipment in the Ocular Imaging Center offers standard and short-wave-length visual field testing, scanning laser polarimetry (Gdx) for nerve-fiber layer measurement, ultrasound biomicroscopy, corneal topography, and specular microscopy. Anterior and posterior segment photography and fluorescein and ICG angiography also are available. Other services include ocular ultrasonography and therapeutic contact lens fitting.
The staff includes an optometrist, an ophthalmic photographer, ophthalmic technicians and clerical personnel. In 1998, the LICH ophthalmology service accommodated nearly 6,000 outpatient visits—an increase of 18 percent since 1995.
