Orange County Eye Doctor
Specializing in Medical Retina & Cataract
Dr. Brian Kim is one of Orange County’s most popular and beloved Ivy League-educated and board-certified Ophthalmologists for over 10 years. He serves as the physician and surgeon to numerous physicians and healthcare professionals in Southern California and has often been called “The Physician’s Physician” and awarded one of Orange County’s “Physicians of Excellence” every year since 2018. Dr. Brian Kim is a fellowship-trained Medical Retina Specialist from the elite Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Florida who specializes in the diagnosis and clinical treatment of retinal and macular conditions and the surgical treatment of cataracts. He is dedicated to advancement in medicine and has authored numerous peer-reviewed research publications in Ophthalmology, currently conducts clinical trials for several retinal conditions at Harvard Eye Associates, and teaches as adjunct clinical faculty at a local university. He has been interviewed on both local and national television for his ocular expertise and holds several US patents on vision aid technology utilizing augmented reality and artificial intelligence to assist those who suffer from vision loss.
At Harvard Eye Associates, Dr. Brian Kim focuses on the diagnosis and non-surgical treatment of retinal and macular diseases including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, retinal vascular occlusions (RVO), peripheral retinal degenerations and macular dystrophies, macular edema, and retinal detachments. He also performs retinal screening evaluations in patients taking certain medications such as Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) and tamoxifen.
In addition to being an accomplished retina specialist, he also specializes in the surgical management of cataracts and astigmatism. He is an experienced premium cataract surgeon and an expert in using femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery (FLACS), intraoperative aberrometry, and advanced technology intraocular lenses like the Light Adjustable Lens, multifocal lenses, extended depth of field (EDOF) lenses, and astigmatism-correcting toric lenses.
Dr. Brian Kim has always had a penchant for technology, starting well before medical school. His first high school job was assembling robotic dinosaurs for museums and by his first year of college, he was using CAD and finite element modeling to test components for a biomedical engineering company.
After receiving his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University in New York, he worked as a database programmer for Accenture in the pharmaceutical and health science division. He then went on to research mechanical cardiac assist devices and participated in heart and lung transplant surgeries with the Columbia University heart and lung transplant team. Realizing then that he wanted to incorporate his engineering background with medicine, he went on to earn his Medical Degree from Pennsylvania State University where he discovered that ophthalmic medicine incorporated advanced technology in much of its care. He graduated Ophthalmology residency at The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute at the University of California, Irvine and completed a subspecialty fellowship in Medical Retina at the prestigious Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Florida.
He is honored to return home to Orange County and join Harvard Eye Associates with his father, Dr. Edward Kim. He enjoys spending time with his wife, daughter, and mischievous pug. When not saving eyesight, he enjoys fly fishing, hiking, sculling, and playing video games (to keep his surgical skills up!).
“Vision is our most valuable sense — I feel extremely privileged to help people in the care of their eyesight.”
