Craig Berger, MD opened the Bay Area Eye Institute in 2007, specializing in refractive, corneal and cataract eye surgery.
Dr. Berger, a Board Certified fellowship trained ophthalmic surgeon grew up in Leesburg, FL. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Florida and received his Doctorate of Medicine degree from the University Of South Florida College Of Medicine in 1995.

She is here!!! Shaylin Dale Berger was born on Sunday,  February 1st, 2009. Click for photos

He completed his internship at the Mayo Clinic in 1996 and his ophthalmology residency at the Tulane School of Medicine. He spent an additional year at Tulane for sub-specialty training in Cornea and Refractive Surgery. During his Corneal Fellowship, Dr. Berger was involved in the first studies of wavefront guided laser surgery (CustomCornea®) in the United States. He was also involved in the first efficacy and safety studies of Restasis® in patients with dry eye.

In 2000, Dr. Berger returned to Tampa to take a position as a fulltime Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of South Florida Eye Institute. Since then, Dr. Berger has held the position of Business Integrity Officer of the USF Department of Ophthalmology. As a fulltime professor, he has had the privilege of teaching other doctors how to perform cataract, pterygium and cornea transplant surgery. Many of these former students of Dr. Berger are in practice here in the Tampa bay area. For the last 8 years, Dr. Berger has spent at least one half day a week treating American veterans at the James A Haley Veterans Administration Hospital.

He is board certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology and is a member of multiple local and national professional societies including American Academy of Ophthalmology, American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, and Tampa Bay Ophthalmology Society, Florida Society of Ophthalmology and the Florida Medical Association. Dr. Berger has held the position of Chief of the Ophthalmology section for Tampa General Hospital since 2004. In 2007, Dr Berger was named to the Best Doctors in America® database and was awarded the Surgical Teacher of the Year Award by the University of South Florida Department of Ophthalmology in 2008.

Dr. Berger opened the Bay Area Eye Institute in 2007 in order to provide comprehensive eye care specializing in refractive, corneal and cataract surgery. Dr. Berger has performed a wide variety of refractive surgeries, including PRK, LASIK, INTACS and no injection, sutureless cataract surgery. He is proud to be one of the first cornea surgeons in the Tampa Bay area to offer the latest advance in cornea transplant surgery, Descemet’s Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSAEK). He is currently accepting new patients, consults and second opinions with available appointments within 2-3 days. Emergency patients can often be seen the same day.  Dr. Berger also works very closely with the Tampa Bay area optometrists.