Clinic specializing in retina treatments opens in Fresno

There’s a new eye clinic in Fresno, specializing in treating retinal conditions surgically and medically.

Advanced Retina Care opened its doors Wednesday at 7145 N. Chestnut Ave., Suite 108. The practice was started by Dr. Vivian Kim, who has more than 16 years experience of treating patients in the Valley working at EYE-Q Vision Care.

“I’ve really grown to love this community and the people that I treat,” she said.

There are a lot of patients who have potentially blinding diseases, some of which are not treatable or curable, she said.

Retinal detachments are one of the reversible conditions she treats – it just takes a bit of surgery to reattach the retina, with varying results, she said.

Macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of blindness in patients older than than 50, is not curable, but can be treated at the clinic with injections of medicine directly into the eye to slow or halt its progress, she said.

Diabetic retinopathy is found in patients with diabetes, which has been on the rise with obesity, she said. The condition is also not curable but treatable with eye injections.

Kim said she opened the clinic because she had the opportunity to do so her way. There are a lot of new medical offices in the area, which has given the place a community feel with all the colleagues she has around, she said.

It was complicated to start up, more akin to starting over — Kim said she had to re-establish her credentials with insurance payers and take the building from a shell to a serviceable clinic.

The clinic has seven employees aside from Kim, including office manager Diane Avila, who worked with Kim at EYE-Q.

More info is at www.arcretina.com.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 12:04 PM with the headline "Clinic specializing in retina treatments opens in Fresno."