Our History
Our History
Pacific Eye Associates is one of the largest private ophthalmology practices in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, 9 ophthalmologists and 2 optometrists practice general and subspecialty ophthalmology here, offering full-service medical and surgical eye care under one roof. That scope took decades to build. It’s the result of nearly a century of San Francisco ophthalmologists building on each other’s work.
Early Beginnings
The story starts in the early 1900s, when Dr. Hans Barkan opened an ophthalmology practice in San Francisco. Dr. Jerry Bettman and Dr. Gilbert Cleasby joined him not long after. The three became nationally prominent figures in the field, laying groundwork for what would eventually become PEA.
Pacific Ophthalmic Consultants
Dr. Wayne Fung joined Dr. Cleasby’s office on Clay Street in 1968. Dr. Robert Webster followed in 1969. Seven years later, Fung and Webster split off to start their own practice. Dr. Arthur Allen joined them in 1978, and the three became Pacific Ophthalmic Consultants (POC).
Dr. Richard Abbott and Dr. William Stewart joined in 1979, the same year the practice moved to the Stanford Building next to what is now CPMC. In 1994, Dr. Karen Oxford completed her fellowship under Drs. Abbott and Webster and came on board.
Pacific Eye Associates
In 1985, Fung, Webster, and Allen moved the practice into the newly opened Pacific Professional Building — the location PEA still calls home today.
A decade later, in 1995, POC merged with the ophthalmology teaching faculty at CPMC, and the combined group took a new name: Pacific Eye Associates. Dr. David Heiden, who joined shortly after the merger, remains part of the practice today.
Growth Through the Late ’90s and 2000s
Through the late 1990s and 2000s, PEA continued to grow, adding physicians across cornea, retina, glaucoma, oculofacial surgery, and optometry. Among them was Dr. Danny Lin, who joined in 2004 after completing a fellowship in cornea and refractive surgery — he now serves as PEA’s President.
Where We Are Today
The idea that drove Fung, Webster, and Allen in 1985 — one practice where a patient could get any kind of eye care they needed — is still what defines PEA today. General ophthalmology, subspecialty care, and optometry, all under one roof, from physicians who work a few steps from each other. Few practices in the field have been part of this city as long as PEA has. Counting the practices that became PEA, we’ve been treating San Francisco patients for close to a century, which may make us one of the longest-standing multi-specialty ophthalmology groups still operating in the Bay Area.
