Meet Dr. Shira Kresch: A Leading Keratoconus Eye Doctor in Michigan

I am a primary care optometrist who is very passionate about helping people get their absolute maximum visual potential. My journey began when I did not know what I wanted to do when I “grew up” while at my first year of college. I shadowed every type of profession I was interested in and when I experienced optometry, I fell in love with it.

I completed my pre-med BS in Nutrition and Food Sciences on a full Presidential Scholarship and co-majored in University Honors Wayne State University’s Honors. I worked hard to get into my top choice, SUNY Optometry and even harder for acceptance into the dual OD/MS program where I was able to work in vision research in addition to my regular optometry studies.

Gaining additional experience in managing ocular disease and working with ophthalmology was important to me and I was lucky to match into an incredible Primary Care and Ocular Disease residency at the NY VA Harbor Health System in Brooklyn and Queens.

While I enjoyed my first job working in an ophthalmology/optometry private practice after that, I was extremely fortunate to join the glaucoma clinic of Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Department of Ophthalmology.

I served on the faculty of Columbia as an Instructor of Optometric Sciences in Ophthalmology and worked alongside world-renowned ophthalmologic innovators, researchers and clinicians for a little over 4 years. It was a dream job where I lectured regularly at Columbia and national meetings, worked in one of the most prestigious ophthalmology research labs in the world with Dr. Donald Hood, started a new myopia control clinic, and learned something new every day from the best of the best.

When COVID hit, my chairman charged me with leading the telemedicine initiative for the ophthalmology department and had me doing hundreds of telemedicine calls during the pandemic.

Together with my family, I decided to return home to Michigan where my husband and I both have our families. Kresge Eye Institute hired me as their Director of Optometry and I joined the faculty of Wayne State University School of Medicine as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology.

I created a niche of specialty contact lenses, the most rewarding thing I have ever done thus far in my career. This segued my dream of opening my own practice with a focus on “hard-to-fit” contact lenses. Just two weeks after opening our doors I received the surprise of a lifetime and was named the national Theia Award of Excellence Young OD by Women in Optometry.

My kids like to make fun of me that I always say “I helped people see today!” when I come home from work, and I just tell them what my dad told me – to make sure their job is always something they love to do and they’ll never work a day in their life.

If you have been told you can’t wear contacts, come and see me. If you have keratoconus, had a corneal transplant, have significant dry eye syndrome, come and see me! It is my honor to meet you and a greater honor to serve you while we work together to make sure you have your best vision!