Dr. John J. Gardner

The Marathon Man is in the building!

Dr. John Gardner, known to his family and friends as “Dr. Jack” has run 55 marathons since 1978, when he completed his first-of-30 Chicago Marathons.

A lifelong sports fan, athlete, and learner and traveler, Dr. Jack’s marathons have included runs in Paris, France, London, England, New York, Boston, the Arctic Circle and Mt. Everest in Nepal.

And all these roads lead him back to his passion for caring for his patients’ eyes and eye health, for family practice optometry, and for private practitioners.  He is particularly interested in helping people with early macular degeneration, specialty contact lenses (One patient still refers to Dr. Jack as the “contact lens god.”), myopia management, pre- and post-op care and plain old outstanding family eye care.

Truly, Dr. Jack is devoted to making sure that all Gardner Family Eye Care patients receive the highest quality care, including the latest and greatest innovations of technology.  The Associate Doctors reflect his commitments to making sure that, even as he ages (Is this possible?!), our patients receive the absolute finest Optometric care. These younger doctors provide the depth and quality of care with the newer approaches and techniques that are now part of their training, which exists, in part because of Dr. Jack’s involvement in various organizations and lobbying efforts over the years.

Over the years, Dr. Jack has continued and extended his father’s legacy of patient-centered optometric care.  And, over the years, he has supported and nurtured family- and privately-owned optometric practices by inviting young doctors into the practice, by sharing expertise with members of the optometric communities, by staying the course when so many have shifted to private equity or corporate-owned practices.

Relationships are key in this family practice model.

And Dr. Gardner puts relationships front and center…with Staff, with Patients, with fellow Optometrists.

While Dr. Gardner’s running days may be behind him, his marathon of patient care continues right alongside his support of family practice.

The world changes always.

But Dr. Jack prides himself on maintaining his father’s legacy of excellence.

And when you consider that Dr. James Gardner opened the practice in 1938 (BEFORE WWII), you see how each of the Gardners showered their focus on their patients.

Dr. Jack brought his BA from Villanova University to The Ohio State University’s College of Optometry where he remains active in alumni events.  (He is a HUGE fan of Villanova’s basketball Wildcats and is especially fond of a photo taken of him with former coach, Jay Wright.)  For 8 years, Dr. Jack’s time on the faculty at the Illinois College of Optometry included coaching the ICO men’s basketball team.  (Ask him what his sweetest victory was!)

His intense interest in sports prompted him to get involved with sports vision.  He wrote a chapter in the book, Sports Vision, edited by Don Loren and CJ MacEwen (Dr. Gardner’s chapter is Vision Requirements in Sport and you can see him way back when in the photo in his chapter! )  Dr. Jack was one of the optometrists testing the vision of professional basketball players, signees, Para-Olympic athletes as well as Olympic athletes at the Atlanta games in 1996.  Dr. Jack loves to help young athletes on the field, knowing that this also helps their classroom performances and in their life.

Winding down is not in Dr. Jack’s vocabulary, so you’ll still see him in the offices caring for patients, mentoring the younger doctors in the practice and elsewhere, and keeping the world safe for family optometric practice by being an active administrator for Vision Source.

He now also enjoys more time with his wife, Paula and, when they can, with their sons who live in Boise ID and Nashville TN.  The family recently fulfilled a lifelong dream of traveling together to Machu Picchu in Peru.

Dr. Jack’s primary vision is always to make sure that all people have access to excellence in eye health and vision care across their entire life. His life has been devoted to this purpose.

If you would like to e-mail Dr. Jack please do so at doctors@gardnereyecare.com