After emigrating from South Africa at 17 years old, Jonathan Woolfson worked his way through the University of the South, Vanderbilt Medical School, and a residency in ophthalmology and Emory. He then returned to South Africa to learn all he could from cornea surgery pioneer, Michael Kritzinger, MD, about a new eye procedure called LASIK.

Woolfson returned to the Southeast US, and recognized that a successful practice based on a refractive procedure like LASIK needed to have an infrastructure that could deliver that service to the patients of the many optometrists and ophthalmologists in the region. In the mid-1990s, he plugged himself in to a large North American company that had a similar idea. In 2002, he and
Tom Spetalnick, OD, an optometrist who’d worked with him at the previous practice, established Custom Laser Eye, and began hiring all of the right people. They made themselves accessible to patients and referring doctors alike, and ultimately formed what is now Woolfson Eye Institute, now in its 22nd year.

Over the years, Jonathan Woolfson, MD, saw that his practice could provide eye care services, mostly surgical, but also advanced medical treatment of such things as glaucoma, retinal pathology, cataracts, corneal disease, and even cosmetic treatments. He brought in the best and the brightest, so that in 2020, virtually any eye problem that could be diagnosed could also be treated by one or more of the optometrists, ophthalmologists, and eye surgeons at Woolfson Eye Institute.