Dr. S. Joseph Weinstock

Dr. Solomon Joseph Weinstock was awarded the Eye Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s Lifetime Achievement award in recognition for his distinguished career of service to the specialty of Ophthalmology.  The ceremony took place at the Annual General Meeting of the Eye Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in Toronto Saturday evening.

Dr. Weinstock obtained his MD from the University of Toronto in 1971.  In 1975 he completed the Byron Smith Ophthalmic Plastic Surgery fellowship at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital and the following year completed a fellowship in Ophthalmic Ultrasound from the University of Iowa.  He has a long history of teaching and sharing his pearls of wisdom with legions of medical students.  Dr. Weinstock has long been an innovative master of refractive and cataract surgery and oculoplastics.

Dr. Weinstock was one of the first ophthalmologists to perform phacoemulsification in Toronto.  He went to New York and learned from the inventor of phaco – Dr. Charlie Kelman – and then returned to Western to do phaco and teach it to residents.  He was the first to incorporate limbal relaxing incisions to reduce postoperative astigmatism long before toric implants were developed.  He was also the first to do topical temporal phaco and taught it to residents.  He implanted bifocal IOL’s shortly after they became available and taught residents to use them for the appropriate candidates.

In 1990 Dr. Weinstock was the first ophthalmologist to perform laser surgery on a patient to correct her nearsightedness.  Prior to this, the only surgery available to correct myopia was the controversial radial keratotomy in which a hand-held blade was used to make radial cuts in the cornea.  When Dr. Weinstock heard that the Europeans had a laser procedure that appeared safer, he went to Berlin and Milan to learn about the process and then returned to Ontario and did the first five cases September 1990.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Weinstock has performed more than 10,000 refractive procedures and has delivered more than 30 refractive surgery presentations.  He is photographed here accepting his award with his two ophthalmologist sons; Doctors David and Moss Weinstock.

“His contributions to the field of ophthalmology are tremendous and changed the way ophthalmic care is provided in Ontario.  We are proud to present Dr. Weinstock with the 2018 EPSO Lifetime Achievement Award; we could not think of a more deserving recipient.” -Dr. Raj Rathee, President of the Eye Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario