William Ellis MD Laser Center, Tracy

Stanford-trained, Dr. William Ellis is among the first surgeons to introduce Lasik to the USA. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, he studied electrical engineering, focusing on field and wave transmission—lasers, in other words. It was a worthy prelude to his eventual specialty, since after completing medical school and his residency, though, Dr. Ellis realized the enormous potential of lasers—via the revolutionary new procedure known as LASIK—to help his patients see more clearly. Since then, he has performed more than 80,000 LASIK surgeries and even helped pioneer Epi-LASIK, taught other optometrists and written textbooks, a version of the procedure that doesn't use blades to make the incision. At his practices throughout the Bay Area, Dr. Ellis continues to take pride in performing every LASIK procedure, giving patrons the gift of clear eyesight so they can finally make out the tiny poems written between the lines of barcodes.