Dr. Mainster is vice chairman and professor in the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Kansas Medical School, where he is director of the Macular and Retinal Vascular Disease Service. His clinical practice involves the management of age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and retinal vascular occlusion. He is also a physicist with research interests in laser biophysics, radiant energy eye hazards, ophthalmoscopic imaging, macular pathophysiology and mathematical modeling.
Dr. Mainster received his Ph.D. in physics from North Carolina State University in 1968. He worked in aerospace research at Technology, Incorporated in San Antonio, Texas for 4 years before entering medical school. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Texas Medical Center in Galveston, Texas in 1975. He completed an ophthalmology residency at Scott and White Hospital in 1979 and a retinal disease fellowship at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1981. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.
Dr. Mainster has received the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Honor and Senior Achievement Awards. He is listed in Woodward & White's "The Best Doctors in America." He has written over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and holds six patents. His technical contributions include the ultraviolet protective intraocular lens, the twin-beam aiming system for Nd:YAG photodisruptors, aspheric contact lens ophthalmoscopy, clinical applications of scanning laser ophthalmoscopy, and mathematical models of retinal photocoagulation, photopigment kinetics, keratorefractive laser surgery, and retinal vascular morphology.
Dr. Mainster has lectured nationally and internationally on retinal practice, instrumentation and biophysics. He serves on the editorial boards and as a reviewer for numerous scientific journals. He is a consultant to the Physical Agents Threshold Limit Values Committee of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, a member of the Subcommittee on Laser Bioeffects of the American National Standards Institute Committee on the Safe Use of Lasers, a member of the Standing Committee on Optical Biophysics of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation, and a member of the Committee on Light and Retinal Disease (TC6-37) of the Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage.