Alan Berger

Dr. Alan Berger was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec and received his Bachelor of Science in Human Genetics (1978) and his Doctor of Medicine (1983) from McGill University. After completing an internship in Internal Medicine at Sunnybrook Hospital in 1984, he did his Ophthalmology Residency training at the University of Toronto, finishing in 1987. He then did an 18-month subspecialty fellowship in Diseases and Surgery of the Retina and Vitreous at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri after which he was recruited to join the University of Toronto, Department of Ophthalmology as the first full time academic vitreoretinal surgeon at Sunnybrook Hospital. He thanks Dr. Bill Dixon, who was then the Chief of Ophthalmology at Sunnybrook, for his friendship, guidance and confidence in him during his 13 years at Sunnybrook.

In 2002, Dr. Berger accepted the position of Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at St. Michael’s Hospital and had the pleasure of working under the leadership of one of his career mentors and friends, Dr. Jeff Hurwitz, who was the Departmental Chairman at that time. Over the years, Dr. Berger has held many positions and has served on many committees in the Department, most recently serving as Vice-Chairman of Clinical Services from 2013-2022. He has been actively involved locally, nationally and internationally in the field of Ophthalmology, serving on numerous hospital and subspecialty committees including the St. Michael’s Hospital Board of Directors (2007-2011) during which time he held the position of President of the St. Michaels Hospital Medical Staff Association from 2009-2011, the Eye Physicians of Ontario (EPSO) Executive from 2012-2018, the Retinal Quality Based Procedure Committee from 2013-2014, Toronto Central LHIN Vision Strategy Task Force from 2016-2019 ( Co-Chairman) , and the Executive of the Canadian Retina Society from 2017 to 2022.

Dr. Berger was a co-founder of the Toronto Ophthalmological Society with Drs. Ted Rabinovitch, Jeff Martow and Steve Arshinoff and he served as Vice-President and Treasurer of the society from 1990-2017. He chaired the Retina Canada Meeting in 2004, the Canadian Surgical Retinal Meetings in both 2005 and 2006, and the National Retina Canada Case Conference in 2016. In 2011, Dr. Berger co-founded the Toronto Retina Institute with Dr. David Chow.

Dr. Berger has received numerous national and international awards and has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and book chapters. He has given over 300 lectures and presentations at local, national and international meetings on his many vitreoretinal clinical, academic and research interests. He takes great pride in having mentored and trained hundreds of residents and over 62 vitreoretinal fellows in his 37-year career.

Alan has enjoyed a wonderful 45 years of marriage to Wendy, a Landscape Architect and he is the proud father of sons Jesse and Lee, and grandfather of Jamie, Noa and Eden. His leisure time is spent with family and friends, reading, playing golf and basketball and discovering the world through his travels.