Dr. Reena Patel earned her Doctor of Optometry degree from the Southern California College of Optometry (SCCO) at Marshall B. Ketchum University. Upon graduation from SCCO, Dr. Patel went on to pursue a residency in Pediatric Optometry at State University of New York (SUNY), College of Optometry.
Once her residency was completed, Dr. Patel chose to continue her career at SUNY as assistant clinical faculty. She supervised residents in the areas of pediatrics, infant vision care, and vision therapy, including therapy for preschool aged children as well as children with special needs. She performed direct care at New York University’s Eye Clinic, located in NYU’s Student Health Center.
Dr. Patel joined the Vision Therapy and Pediatric Vision Care faculty at SCCO in 2011. She is a full-time assistant professor with clinical and laboratory teaching responsibilities in the Vision Therapy and Pediatric services. She is an investigator with the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG) and conducts research in the areas of amblyopia, strabismus, binocular vision disorders and myopia control.
Pediatrics and vision therapy residencies are much less common than the most of the other residency programs available, so I took a few minutes to to speak with Dr. Patel to learn a little more about why she chose to take this path.