Dr. W. Bruce Jackson

The Eye Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s Lifetime Achievement Award is presented each year to a deserving ophthalmologist whose contributions to the profession have been outstanding, and of positive and lasting quality in the provision of healthcare services.

In 2017 Dr. W. Bruce Jackson was recognized for his distinguished career of service to the specialty of Ophthalmology.

Dr. W. Bruce Jackson is an ophthalmologist specializing in cornea & external diseases and refractive surgery. He completed his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Western Ontario. This was followed by an ophthalmology residency at McGill University, Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Quebec. He did a fellowship in Cornea and External Disease at the Francis I. Proctor Foundation, UCSF, funded by the Medical Research Council of Canada. He then joined the department of ophthalmology at McGill University, where he stayed for seventeen years. During his time there, he developed a Cornea & External Disease Fellowship Program and initiated the McGill Low Vision Clinic, which continues to run successfully. In 1986, he became Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at the Royal Victoria Hospital and in 1987, he was named Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, Program Director and Research Director at McGill.

“Dr. Jackson’s contributions to the field of ophthalmology are tremendous and impossible to measure,” stated Dr. Setareh Ziai of Ottawa,” We could not think of a more deserving recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.”

In 1991, Dr. Jackson was recruited to Ottawa where he established the University of Ottawa Eye Institute. He became Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Ottawa and Director General of the Eye Institute until June 30th, 2008. He also started the excimer laser program at the Eye Institute in 1992 and recruited a prestigious research team into this program. He has developed and carried out clinical research in the treatment of myopia, myopic astigmatism, hyperopia, and hyperopic astigmatism and PresbyLASIK from 1993 onward. As a result of this program, additional research projects have been funded by industry, MRC, and CIHR.

In 1979, Dr. Jackson founded the Canadian External Disease and Cornea Society and chaired the Society until 1988. He is past Chairman of the Association of Canadian University Professors of Ophthalmology. He has been an oral examiner for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and a member of the written test committee. He is a reviewer for many ophthalmologic journals and a consultant to the Health Protection Branch, Bureau of Human Prescription Drugs, Health Canada. Under his leadership, the Eye Institute has become the major beta-test site for AMO, helping to develop hardware and software modifications to the excimer laser for the treatment of myopia, astigmatism, hyperopia, and presbyopia. Data collected at the University of Ottawa Eye Institute was used for the FDA approval of high myopia and astigmatism treatment in the US in the fall of 1997, for the treatment of hyperopia in 1998, and for the treatment of high myopia in 2005.

Dr. Jackson was known as a tremendously gifted teacher and mentor to hundreds of students, residents, fellows and colleagues over his career in Montreal and Toronto. He currently resides just outside of Peterborough where he has started a sub-specialty cornea and external disease clinic with emphasis on dry eye and ocular surface disease.