FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016
Contact:  Sheanna Spence, Assistant Director, Alumni Affairs and Community Relations, School of Medicine, 304-691-1639

Cornea, glaucoma specialists join Marshall faculty

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — The Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and Marshall Health recently welcomed two new specialists to its department of ophthalmology.

“The School of Medicine, along with our patients, have been anticipating the addition of these specialists to our practice,” said R. Mark Hatfield, O.D., M.D., administrative chair of the department of ophthalmology. “Their expertise and training in corneas and glaucoma will help us meet a considerable need in our region.”

Maya Bitar, M.D., a fellowship-trained, board-certified cornea specialist, has been appointed an assistant professor of ophthalmology. Bitar's interests include dry eye syndrome, keratoconus, Fuchs' dystrophy, pterygium, ocular surface neoplasia, corneal transplantation, cataract surgery and refractive surgery.

Bitar earned her medical degree from Jesuit Saint-Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon. She completed apostdoctoral research fellowship at Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard Medical School in Boston; an ophthalmology residency at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky; a pediatric ophthalmology and adult strabismus fellowship at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and a cornea fellowship at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology.

Bitar is accepting new patients and referrals at the Huntington office of Marshall Eye Surgeons, located at 5187 U.S. 60 East in the East Hills Professional Center. For appointments, please call 304-691-8800.

Manik Goel, M.D., a fellowship-trained glaucoma specialist and cataract surgeon, has also joined the department as an assistant professor of ophthalmology. Goel earned his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical 

Sciences in New Delhi, where he also completed a residency in ophthalmology. He completed a second ophthalmology residency at Washington University in St. Louis, a glaucoma research fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida, and a glaucoma fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Goel becomes the first fellowship-trained glaucoma specialist in southern West Virginia since the passing in 2015 of Dr. Michael Krasnow, founding chair of Marshall’s ophthalmology department.

Goel is accepting new patients and referrals at clinics in both Charleston and Huntington. Marshall Eye Surgeons’ new Charleston office at 331 Laidley St., Suite 201, will open in November. In Huntington, he is seeing patients at Marshall Eye Surgeons, located at 5187 U.S. 60 East, Suite 6, in the East Hills Professional Center. For appointments at either location, please call 304-691-8800.

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Date Posted: Wednesday, September 14, 2016