If you were to listen to a day in the life of a veterinary ophthalmologist, you’d likely hear words and phrases you’ve never heard before.

“A tubing system will be placed under your horse’s eyelid to treat the fungal infection in the cornea.”

“We need a better look at your dog’s fundus.”

“Practice suturing a corneal laceration on this pig eye.”

“Let’s make sure there’s appropriate husbandry at home for this chameleon with scales stuck on its eye.”

But for veterinarians who specialize in caring for animals’ eyes, it’s just business as usual.

“As veterinary ophthalmologists, we’ll see essentially any animal that has an eye and treat any conditions having to do with the eye or the structures around it,” said Stephanie Pumphrey, D.V.M., Ph.D., DACVO, associate professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and medical director at Henry and Lois Foster Hospital for Small Animals.

“Eyes are highly conserved across species, meaning that a rabbit eye, a horse eye, a dog eye, and a human eye have a lot of similarities, even though the animal attached to them is quite different,” Pumphrey adds.

Pumphrey leads a team of veterinary ophthalmologists, including Vanessa Yang, D.V.M., DACVO, assistant professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. In 2025, the addition of Jennifer Heyward, D.V.M., DACVO, assistant clinical professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, made the team complete.

As the only veterinary ophthalmology service in New England with a specialist on call 24 hours a day, the trio of experts divide and conquer multiple responsibilities: seeing patients at Foster Hospital for Small Animals, treating horses at Hospital for Large Animals (HLA), teaching veterinary students in the classroom and in clinics, overseeing two veterinary residents, and conducting their own research projects.

Common Clinical Cases

Eye problems in pets are common and can range from trauma cases to eyelid issues to various conditions and diseases. While the majority of the team’s patients are small animals like cats and dogs, the veterinarians also see a fair number of horses and a sprinkling of other species, such as a chameleon or rabbit brought in by the Zoological Companion Animal Service at Foster Hospital for Small Animals.

“We see a lot of trauma cases where, for example, a dog had a fight with the family cat or hit its eye on something, which can cause all sorts of ramifications from a corneal scratch to significant damage to the intraocular structures,” Pumphrey said. “We may sometimes even have to do emergency cataract surgery, depending on how extensive the damage was.”

The team also deals with eyelid issues, including growths on the eyelid, or developmental or congenital abnormalities such as entropion, a condition where the lid turns inward, causing eye lashes to rub against and irritate the cornea.

Pets can have some of the same eye conditions that humans develop, like glaucoma, cataracts, and retinal diseases. This means that animal medicine benefits from research and clinical work focused on humans, and veterinarians can adapt medications, procedures, and technologies that have been developed to help people for use in animals and vice versa.

Glaucoma is a group of diseases that cause increased pressure in the eye, which damages the retina and optic nerve and causes pain. Pumphrey’s research focuses on glaucoma in dogs, which is a little different than glaucoma in people. Humans usually get what’s called open-angle glaucoma, in which the pressure goes up slowly and tends to be more responsive to medication.

Dogs, on the other hand, are prone to closed-angle glaucoma, where the pressure tends to go up quickly, and it’s not as responsive to treatment. Pumphrey is interested in how changes to the drainage pathways inside the eye can be slowed or modified to keep pets comfortable and visual for longer.

She’s also working with a veterinary student on a research project related to dogs with glaucoma, where they’re investigating the barriers that prevent people from bringing their pets back for rechecks and/or refilling their medications to see if there are ways to help.

While the ophthalmology team fixes and saves many eyes, sometimes the best option for the patient is enucleation, or for the eye to be removed. This may be the medical recommendation when the eye is causing pain that can’t be treated, which can happen with glaucoma, and if the eye has already lost vision.

“Emotionally, it's hard for humans because we don't like to think about an eye coming out. That's evolution, I suppose—we want to protect our eyes because they're important. But it's a surgery that animals usually handle very well,” said Pumphrey. “When we check in with the owner afterward, they almost always say, ‘I'm so glad I did this, it was the right thing to do. I can tell my pet feels so much better.’”

Equine Considerations

Logistically, treating horses at HLA requires a different approach. Since they’re large animals, and because they’re very strong, they are often sedated to some extent to keep them still and more compliant. Horses can sleep standing up, so they can be quite relaxed and still maintain their balance on their feet.

“If a horse doesn't want you to examine its eye, it will shut the eye, and you won’t be strong enough to pry it open,” Yang said. “We try to do all procedures on horses using standing sedation and nerve blocks, which numb or paralyze only the area where we're working. Paralyzing the eyelid muscles, for example, means that the horse won’t squint or otherwise try to fight us.”

Horses have a much higher risk of complications when they're under general anesthesia, as they’re laying down and fully intubated. Sometimes they can injure themselves when they try to get up after the procedure and stumble or fall.

Unique Learning Experiences

Working with eyes is not an area in which veterinary students—or anyone, for that matter—is naturally skilled, said Yang. It takes a lot of practice to develop the muscle memory required to, for example, conduct an exam of the back of the eye, called the fundus, or measure intraocular pressure.

“I think ophthalmology is either something that excites and interests you, or you find the thought of diseased eyes a little repulsive,” Yang said. “Sometimes students may be intimidated, but it's fun for us as instructors to watch their confidence grow over the course of their clinical rotation.”

Students take an ophthalmology course during their third year, though it’ll soon move to the second year as part of a curriculum restructuring at Cummings School. A surgery lab is held concurrently with the course, during which students use cadaver pig eyes to practice debriding a cornea, or gently removing damaged or loose layers from the eye's surface to create a smooth foundation that promotes healing, and other techniques that would test anyone’s fine motor skills.

“When we start teaching surgical techniques, the students practice how to manipulate the instruments, suture, and other things to get their muscle memory going,” said Heyward. “After that, students move on to practice corneal surgeries and sometimes intraocular surgeries, as well. It’s not an easy thing, but it gets better with time.”

When students are on their fourth-year clinical rotations, they’re permitted to conduct eye exams on patients. But first, sometimes Yang and other faculty bring in their own dogs (she has a yellow Labrador mix) so that students can practice the exam without the pressure of an owner’s watchful gaze.

“Each student usually has at least a case or two every day where they must conduct a full eye examination and discuss their findings with us, including what their diagnosis is and any treatment they suggest,” Heyward said. “Though the residents and interns do most of the client-facing interactions, it gives students a chance to learn the process and go through the motions in a safe environment where, if they make mistakes, people are there to catch them.”

Training Residents and Interns

Becoming a specialist like a veterinary ophthalmologist requires four years of veterinary school, followed by a rotating internship, which might be general in nature. From there, some veterinarians do a specialty internship year with advanced training and intensive practice in their chosen field, while others move directly on to residency training in their specialty. The veterinary ophthalmology team supports two residents or specialty interns at a time.

“There are many hands involved with each appointment, because we want to make sure the veterinary residents and students get the experience they need to succeed,” said Yang.

Though it can vary depending on the program, veterinary ophthalmology interns at Foster Hospital for Small Animals have many of the same responsibilities that residents do. They see patients, interact with the clients, go through the diagnostic process, and perform some surgeries, such as eye removals or eyelid surgeries.

However, Heyward said, if a patient needs microsurgery, or surgery done under a microscope, that’s a job for the residents or someone with more specialized training.

“We don't expect someone to come into an internship or residency with all the answers. The point of being in those positions is to learn,” said Heyward, who wanted to be a veterinarian since she was 5 years old. “It's a competitive field, so you really have to want to do it in order to put up with all that is expected.”

Playing Favorites

All three ophthalmologists insisted they couldn’t possibly choose their favorite type of animal to treat. However, Pumphrey and Yang were both surprised by how much they enjoy working with horses.

“Before going to veterinary school, I never considered that horses would be part of my career,” Pumphrey said. “But they turned out to be one of my favorite parts of my job. Some of my favorite cases have been in horses where we can take an eye that's in bad shape and get it back in a good place, so the horse feels better.”

Yang echoed those sentiments and recalled a recent case with a happy ending that will stay with her. A Clydesdale Thoroughbred cross named Jax was brought to HLA and diagnosed with a corneal ulcer, an open wound on the cornea, with both fungal and bacterial infections in his cornea. As the ulcer healed, a large abscess formed within his cornea, threatening the horse’s vision and the entire eye.

“We were able to do a corneal transplant and a corneal graft to save Jax’s vision and eyes,” said Yang, who has performed corneal transplants in cats and dogs in addition to horses. “His case is particularly memorable in part because Jax is just really nice—he was easy to keep in the hospital, good for his treatments, and his owner was really kind, as well—but also because he had a good outcome.”

In addition to horses, Pumphrey said she finds working on trauma cases in small animal patients especially rewarding. “We can take something that looks really bad and is causing a lot of pain, and fix it, make it whole again, make that pet comfortable, and keep the vision intact.”