ATLANTA – Allen D. Beck, MD, director of Emory Eye Center, has been appointed F. Phinizy Calhoun, Sr. Chair of Ophthalmology by Emory University School of Medicine, effective June 1, 2020. Dr. Beck has served as chair and director of Emory Eye Center since May 2019 and interim chair and director of the department since March 2016.
“I am extremely honored to receive the designation of F. Phinizy Calhoun, Sr. Chair of Ophthalmology. The Calhoun family were essential to the development of the Emory Ophthalmology Department,” Beck says.
“Dr. Calhoun, Sr. served as chair of the department from 1910-1940. The endowment created in his legacy has provided critical support for the growth of the department over the last several decades, and it will continue to sustain future growth.”
Dr. Beck has been part of Emory since attending the Emory School of Medicine; he graduated cum laude in 1989. Following a one-year transitional internship at Georgia Baptist Medical Center (now Atlanta Medical Center), he returned to Emory for his ophthalmology residency (serving as Chief Resident) and fellowship in glaucoma. He joined the Emory School of Medicine and Emory Eye Center faculty in 1994 after completing his fellowship.
For the last two decades, Dr. Beck has established a thriving medical practice focused on the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma in adults and children. He became the Emory glaucoma section director in 1999 and the William and Clara Redmond Professor of Ophthalmology in 2006. He is well-known and respected among his peers at Emory and beyond, as seen by his numerous professional and patient-centered awards and his inclusion in Atlanta magazine’s Top Doctors issue every year since 2009.
The Emory Eye Center has grown under his leadership. The department has more than 60 ophthalmologists, research staff and optometrists; new clinic space at the satellite location at Emory Johns Creek Hospital; expanded clinic space at the satellite location at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital; and a state-of-the-art, renovated research area at the Clifton Road clinic, which is scheduled for completion in spring 2021.
Dr. Beck’s clinical areas of interest focus on the diagnosis and management of pediatric and adult glaucoma. His research interests include the diagnosis and management of pediatric glaucoma, clinical studies of adult glaucoma therapies, pediatric cataract, and glaucoma compliance.