Francis S. Mah, MD
Professor of Ophthalmology
Co-Medical Director, Charles T. Campbell Ophthalmic Microbiology Laboratory
Bio
All too often, patients the world over receive an incorrect diagnosis of a bacterial rather than viral eye infection. Antibiotics are the common course of therapy. As a result, there is a growing resistance to these antibiotics, something Dr. Francis Mah and others at the The Eye & Ear Institute’s Charles T. Campbell Microbiology Lab were the first to report to medical colleagues across the country. Now other labs around the world are re-evaluating how they diagnose and treat common eye infections.
"We have the real-time ability to diagnose a patient—often within 20 minutes to an hour, while they are still in our offices—so we can properly treat them," Dr. Mah says. "The consequences of an incorrect diagnosis are far-reaching—resistance to medications, lost work or school time and the spread of disease."
EEI has been first in testing newer antibiotics, first to report resistance, and developed a pre-operative antibiotic procedure designed to reduce post-surgical eye infections which have been on the rise.
"We've developed a model for treating post-surgical infections more effectively by applying agents pre-operatively when they are better able to penetrate the tissue of the eye."
Dr. Mah's passion for patient healing drives his research philosophy. "When a patient has a problem that I can't solve immediately in clinical care, I can study it in the lab and try to solve it. That's important to me. Then I can report on the findings so that others might be able to use them in their clinical work."
When he's not treating patients and investigating new treatments, Dr. Mah looks after the vision of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Francis Mah was awarded his medical degree from the Medical College of Ohio where he also did his internship in internal medicine. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed a fellowship here in cornea, external disease and refractive surgery. He is currently an assistant professor in cornea, external disease and refractive surgery in the Department of Ophthalmology and Co-Medical Director of the Charles T. Campbell Ophthalmic Microbiology Laboratory.
Dr. Mah has been published in numerous medical journals and speaks to professional societies on his work in ocular microbiology and immunology and refractive surgery. He is also the Principal Investigator on a study testing antibiotics and is conducting clinical trials on cornea donations and several therapies to treat eye infections, glaucoma and dry eye.
“Ultimately, we would like to see EEI become the CDC of eye disease.”
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