Soares Goes Private With His Eye Practice

By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

In 1993, ophthalmologist Dr. Chris Soares set up practice in Randolph, recruited here by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire.

This year, after 14 years as a DHMC employee, providing a broad range of services to patients in Randolph and at DHMC, Soares is taking his practice private.

The changeover has required months of behind-the-scenes work for Soares and his employees. The only real change evident to his patients, however, will be an expansion of the kinds of procedures and services he can offer, the Randolph Center eye surgeon said this week.

The fact that Soares has been a DHMC employee might come as a surprise to many. After all, he has been examining patients at his offices across the street from Gifford Medical Center for all these years, and performed most of his eye surgeries at the Gifford operating room. (He has also maintained a part-time ophthalmic practice for DHMC in New Hampshire.)

Soares explained last week that DHMC, which initially hired him during an expansion phase, is now "contracting," and reducing the number of doctors it employs at outlying locations.

Soares was the second ophthalmologist recruited to Randolph by DMHC. The first, Dr. Jack Singer, separated from DHMC and established a private practice in Randolph several years ago.

Soares said he is enthused about the change, and grateful to both Gifford and Dartmouth-Hitchcock for their support as he moves to private practice.

Soares will continue to see patients at his offices at 40 South Main Street in Randolph four days a week, and he will continue to have operating room privileges at GMC and at DHMC's Mary Hitchcock Hospital.

He has been a busy eye surgeon, performing about 200 cataract surgeries per year, on patients ranging in age from one week old to 99, and about 40 surgeries annually to correct eye misalignment.

One of only two "fellowship-trained, board-certified, pediatric ophthalmologists" in Vermont, Soares will continue to work for DHMC one day a week. As a contracted provider at ChaD, Children's Hospital at Dartmouth, he will see and treat children with complex eye diseases.

Continuing services based from his Randolph office will include standard eye examinations, cataract surgery, and surgical or drug treatment to correct conditions such as eye misalignment and or involuntary closure of the eyelid.

Starting May 1, Soares will add a new procedure for those suffering from macular degeneration. He has been training with a retina specialist to perform the procedure, which involves injecting one of several drugs into the eye. The treatment, Soares noted, not only slows the progression of one type of macular degeneration, but can improve patients' vision.

Cosmetic Botox

Another new procedure that Soares will offer starting next week--cosmetic botox treatments--might, at first, seem surprising. However, Soares has been performing more technically complex botox injections for medical reasons for 14 years.

These treatments involve injecting botox into tiny muscles around the eye to correct eye misalignment or an involuntary spasm that "clamps" the eyelid shut. Cosmetic botox injections--to erase brow wrinkles or "crows feet" around the eyes--are much more straightforward, he said.

Assisting Soares in his Randolph practice--Soares Ocular Surgery--will be office manager Sheila Connolly, certified ophthalmic technician Steve Mittleman, and certified ophthalmic assistant Bonnie McMurphy. His wife Laura has assisted in the logistics of taking his practice private.

The Soares have three children. In his free time, Soares enjoys cycling and skiing, and has been seen, more than once, biking to and from work.