The year 2020 is a great time to promote healthy vision, according to Dr. Dan Whipple, founding physician at the Whipple Eye Center

“We are taking advantage of the year 2020 to promote getting out to see your eye doctor,” Whipple says. 

The Whipple Eye Center has been a cornerstone of the Avon community since 1992.

Twenty-eight years ago Hendricks County was an underserved area for eye care. That all changed in July of 1992 when Whipple opened the Whipple Eye Center in Avon. His first office was at Prestwick, and in 1993 he moved to the Hendricks Regional Health building, where he remains today. Whipple’s eye exam team sees patients for office visits on the upstairs level, and Whipple performs surgeries downstairs in the Hibbeln Surgery Center.

“I’m a big fan of taking care of people locally,” says Whipple, who has performed more than 10,000 cataract surgeries right here in Hendricks County. “I like being able to bring cutting-edge technology to Hendricks County so that my patients don’t have to travel to Indianapolis or elsewhere for the most up-to-date eye care.” 

Whipple is a leader in no-shot, no-stitch, no-patch cataract surgery, and he has taught the technique since 1996. 

Whipple Eye Center“Cataract surgery has evolved significantly during my 30-year career,” Whipple says. “People are having it done much younger, since the success rates are over 97 percent and it’s permanent. Once removed, cataracts don’t come back. In addition, there is a great opportunity to become less dependent or completely independent of glasses, with advances in intraocular lens implant (IOL) technology for astigmatism and trifocal correction. Whipple Eye Center has been a leader in these advanced technology IOLs for over a decade.”   

In June of 2012, Whipple was the first eye surgeon in central Indiana to introduce laser-assisted cataract surgery with the LenSx femtosecond laser. Another example of the state-of-the-art care offered by the Whipple Eye Center team is MIGS, micro-invasive glaucoma surgery, which combines cataract surgery with glaucoma surgery. In August of 2012, Whipple implanted the first five commercial iStents in the United States used to perform MIGS surgery. Since then, more than 500,000 of these procedures have been completed nationwide.

Whipple also provides intravitreal injections for patients with macular degeneration or diabetes. 

“Over the past nine years this has become a great convenience for our patients, saving them a 30-mile trip to a retina specialist every month or so,” Whipple says.

In an era when medical practices are increasingly hospital owned and operated, Whipple’s practice has been independently owned and operated for 28 years. It’s important to Whipple that his office provides state-of-the-art care in a friendly environment, where the phone is still answered by a real person.

Whipple has always surrounded himself with a patient-focused eye care team. Dr. Daniel Spitzberg has been practicing ophthalmology in the Indianapolis area for more than 40 years.

“It was (Spitzberg’s) attraction to offering the most state-of-the-art care that brought him to join our team,” Whipple says.

Many employees, including administrators, technicians and front-office personnel, have been at the Whipple Eye Center for more than a decade. Dr. Elise Smith is now in her twenty-third year at the practice as an optometrist.

The latest addition to the team, Dr. Robert McPike, is a 2008 Avon High School graduate who received his optometry degree from Indiana University in 2016. McPike achieved the second highest score in the country on the Patient Assessment and Management national optometry board exam.

“It’s convenient having all three services – ophthalmologist, optometrist and optician – in the same office,” says Whipple, who opened his practice in Avon because his wife Libby wanted to raise their children near her hometown of Plainfield.

“The kids are all grown, and we’re waiting on grandkids,” Whipple says. “Avon has been a great place to raise a family and own a business. I’ve watched the community grow up all around me. Although we utilize the latest technology, we still provide old-fashioned care and concern for our patients.”

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