Joel Hunter, MD

Specialty
Ophthalmology
Practice
Hunter Vision

Joel D. Hunter MD grew up in Orlando, Florida. After graduating from high school with a 4.0 GPA in three years, he attended Taylor University in Indiana, where he says, “I was cold for two and a half years.” He made the Dean’s list each semester at Taylor and graduated with honors in two and a half years. Dr. Hunter attended medical school at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. (After attending Taylor in Indiana, he was determined to attend med school in a tropical climate.) He received the highest grade possible in every didactic course in medical school. Upon his graduation, he was given the award for Academic Excellence.

After a year of internship in general medicine at the highly competitive Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia, Dr. Hunter entered a three-year Ophthalmology residency at the University of South Florida. While there, he performed more cataract surgeries than any resident in the history of the program before him, and several patients at the Veteran’s Hospital in Tampa actually waited to have cataract surgery until Dr. Hunter was operating.

After residency, Dr. Hunter continued to hone his skills for another year through a distinguished fellowship at Durrie Vision focused entirely on refractive surgery. Dan Durrie, MD is a pioneer in refractive surgery and has been personally involved in the development of almost every new technology since the birth of the field in 1988. Durrie Vision chooses one doctor each year for an intensive one-on-one fellowship, which is considered to be the best in the world. After a two-day interview process, Dr. Durrie discontinued all further interviews with other applicants and gave Dr. Hunter the position. While at this one-year fellowship in Kansas City, Kansas, Dr. Hunter was immersed in and trained on the most advanced equipment, by the leader in the field of refractive surgery.

Many doctors who achieve a high level of academic and professional competency, neglect caring personally for patients. Dr. Hunter does not. His favorite part of medicine is one-on-one interactions with people. In fact, the chief motivation for beginning a clinic was setting a new precedent for patient care.

When asked about the most important part of Hunter Vision, Dr. Hunter says, “On my very first day of medical school, our elderly dean walked in and told us in a slow drawl, ‘People won’t notice how much you studied. They won’t know what grades you got, or how hard you worked. But, they will remember how much you cared.’… The most important part to me is that people know how much we care.”