Meet Dr. Hegleh
He has performed tens of thousands of surgical eye procedures over the years. And he is considered the Doctor’s choice when it comes to the care for physicians, other eye surgeons and optometrists and their family members.
Dr. Joseph A. Hegleh is American Board Certified Eye Surgeon and is considered one of the leading experts in the field of Cataract, Cornea & Refractive and Oculofacial Plastic Surgery.
Dr. Hegleh earned his medical degree with honors from the University of Damascus. He served his internship at Mercy Catholic Medical Center of Medical College of Pennsylvania where he spent valuable time training with the best faculties at the prestigious Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, PA.
He completed his residency at the historic Friedenwald Eye institute at Maryland General Hospital (MGH). There he was appointed as chief resident and was under the tutelage of the world-renowned faculties of Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute at Johns Hopkins University, The National Eye Institute and The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
Then he completed his fellowship training in Cornea & External Diseases and Refractive Surgery at the University of South Florida Eye Institute in Tampa, Florida. At USF he was active in research and teaching residents and students the latest surgical techniques where he stayed since as Clinical A. Professor at USF Eye Institute.
He was then competitively recruited to “Omni Eye Services”, a large practice in the southeast of United States based in the Atlanta. There he was the premier anterior segment surgeon for large numbers of referring eye surgeons, and optometrists. He performed numerous eye procedures covering the tri-state area of Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama.
After that, Dr. Hegleh returned to the west coast of Florida where he fell in love with its beaches and waterways and established the “Florida Eye and Laser Institute” to attend to the medical and surgical eye care needs of this wonderful community. He maintains offices and hospital privileges along several counties of the West coast of Florida.
Dr. Hegleh became the Chief of Ophthalmology at Sarasota Memorial Hospital where he helped establish ophthalmic trauma services and continues providing trauma care, serving different hospitals as chief of surgery and active member of executive committees.
He joined the Florida State University FSU College of Medicine as Clinical A. Professor for Surgery and Ophthalmology where he lectures frequently to medical students at the Sarasota Campus.
As a well sought experienced cornea specialist, he became the medical director of International Sight Restoration Eye Bank, which later became Lions Eye Bank and Research Institute in Tampa for over a decade where he was appointed as the Chairman of Advisory Board on Transplantation for Agency of Health Care Administration AHCA for the state of Florida.
Dr. Hegleh is an active participant in our community’s philanthropy and overseas. He was invited as a faculty surgeon at the world renowned ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital where he provided his expertise to attend to the critical eyecare needs of underserved populations around the world.
