Title: Retired Retina Specialist and Surgeon
Company: Retina Specialist of Boston
Location: Lakeland, Florida, United States
Felipe I. Tolentino, Retired Ophthalmologist and Eye Surgeon at Retina Specialist of Boston, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Doctors for dedication, achievements, and leadership in eye care and surgery.
Dr. Tolentino is a retired board-certified ophthalmologist, eye surgeon, and retina specialist celebrating more than five decades of practice in the Philippines and the United States. Driven by a desire to help others and inspired by his uncle, a physician, Dr. Tolentino earned an Associate of Arts from the University of the Philippines in 1952 and his Doctor of Medicine in 1957, and completed residencies in ophthalmology at the Philippine General Hospital, Unity St. Mary’s Campus in Rochester, New York, and Homer G. Philips Hospital in St. Louis.
In 1962, Dr. Tolentino became a clinical fellow in retina and vitreous at the Eye Research Institute and Retina Foundation in Boston, rising to senior research fellow by 1964. He returned to the University of the Philippines the following year as visiting research faculty and an assistant professor of ophthalmology and would remain with the school until 1971. During this time, Dr. Tolentino served as an attending surgeon in the department of ophthalmology at both the Manila Medical Center and Makati Medical Center in Manila and was named chair of ophthalmology at the Manila Medical Center in 1969.
Dr. Tolentino became an associate scientist of the Eye Research Institute and Retina Foundation in Boston in 1971 and was an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School from 1975 until 1985 when he rose to associate professor. During the 1970s, he contributed extensively to the Archives of Ophthalmology and was instrumental in the development of numerous novel retinal surgery techniques. Dr. Tolentino became affiliated with the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary in 1980 and continued to practice at the clinic as an associate surgeon, in addition to maintaining appointments at the Hahnemann Hospital and the Warren Memorial Hospital, from 1983 until his clinical retirement in 2003.
Dr. Tolentino remained on the faculty at Harvard University until 2010. He is a past president of the Association of Philippine Ophthalmologists of America, former secretary of the Ophthalmologic Society of the Philippines, and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Vitreous Society, the Retina Society, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Furthermore, Dr. Tolentino has been active as one of the founders of the Asian Eye Institute in the Philippines, has been affiliated with the Eye Center for the Underserved in Ifugao in the Mountain Provinces in the Philippines and has established a charitable organization to help the needy with cataract blindness.
Since his retirement, Dr. Tolentino has focused his efforts on providing charity care for underserved and low-income communities through Restoring Sight International and the Ophthalmological Foundation of the Philippines. He is the recipient of a Gusi Peace Prize Award in 1980 in recognition of his work in developing countries and has been previously profiled in multiple editions of Marquis Who’s Who in the East and presented with a Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. In June of 2022, Dr. Tolentino accepted an Award from the American Association in the Philippines as a testament to his major contributions in the sciences.
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