Wills Eye Hospital is absolutely unique in all the world: a gift of the Quaker merchant James Wills to the City of Philadelphia in 1832. He gave the fortune he made from his grocery business, to build a hospital for the indigent blind – and thus Wills became the nation’s first eye specialty hospital.
In 1839, the first physician to be trained in Ophthalmology as a specialty came to Wills, and in our 185 years of existence we have trained the most ophthalmologists of any program in the country. Since 1972, Wills has served as the Department of Ophthalmology for the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, the ninth oldest medical school in the country. We hope you will find our program as engaging, inspiring, and warm a place to work and learn as we do.
As you may know, we consider everyone we interview to be a great candidate for our residency – we are convinced by your record and your enthusiastic mentors that you would flourish at Wills. We look forward to getting to know you better during your visit, and to following your career trajectories with admiration.

