Event Location:
Robert S. Jampel, M.D., Ph.D. Auditorium
Kresge Eye Intitute
4717 St. Antoine
Detroit, MI 48201

“Trans-synaptic Degeneration of the Visual Pathway: What we have learned from OCT”

Approved for 1 CME Credit.

Barry Skarf, M.D. Ph.D. has been Staff Neuro-ophthalmologist and Director of the Neuro-ophthalmology Service at the Henry Ford Hospital and Medical Centers for over 30 years. A native of Montreal, Canada, he originally studied Physics at McGill University and then went on to complete a Ph.D. in Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University, where he first became interested in the visual system. His research there investigated the formation of neural connections between the eye and the brain, an area that continues to interest him. After completing his graduate degree, Dr. Skarf returned to McGill for medical school and graduated in 1977. This was followed by a residency in ophthalmology at the University of Toronto, and then fellowship training in neuro-ophthalmology with William F. Hoyt, MD, at UCSF. He undertook a second fellowship in clinical visual electrophysiology with Drs. Eliot Berson (at Harvard) and Sam Sokol (at Tufts) in Boston.

Dr. Skarf’s first academic staff position was at the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children, where he established a clinical and research visual electrophysiology unit. After coming to Henry Ford, he continued studying the development of the visual system in infants and young children for several years. While Dr. Skarf remains primarily interested in the visual sensory system, his clinical focus has been on the various conditions that affect vision by interfering with the normal function of both its sensory and ocular motor components.