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Chief, Eye Care Services
NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, East New York
Caring for the Eyes of East New York
Ask Dr. Lloyd Haskes what he loves about being an optometrist at NYC Health + Hospitals and he might tell you about the patient who came into his clinic one day years ago, confused about why an outside provider had prescribed eye drops. Dr. Haskes did a complete workup and found that the patient had glaucoma. He carefully explained the condition, its treatment and prognosis. “I’ll never forget the hugs I received,” Dr. Haskes says, “as well as the nearly 10-year doctor-patient relationship since then.”
Dr. Haskes is the chief of eye care services at NYC Health + Hospitals/ Gotham Health, East New York, and director of the center’s family practice/ocular disease residency and externship program with SUNY. Overseeing a clinical center that sees more than 350 patients a month, Dr. Haskes has had an important impacton the awareness and treatment of ocular disease in the East New York community. Known for his proactive approach, he’s recently been focused on stepping up his department’s engagement with diabetic patients and improving their management of vision-related conditions.
In addition to his clinical duties at East New York, Dr. Haskes is a full-time clinical professor at the facility’s affiliate, the SUNY College of Optometry, his professional alma mater. He earned his D.O. degree there in 1987, following his father into the field.
Three decades later, Dr. Haskes has seen thousands of patients and trained hundreds of doctors but his daily mission remains constant: To make sure his team sees every patient as an individual, addresses all their needs, answers all their questions, sends them home better off than when they came in. “Because of the immense size of our system, with a lot of moving parts, a patient may feel overlooked,” he says. “My goal every day is for our patients to leave our care smiling. Nothing feels better than being told, ‘Doc, don’t ever leave East New York.'”