Michael Tolentino

At 10 years old, Michael Tolentino, began his ophthalmic research career developing silicone oil to repair retinal detachment in his father’s Harvard Medical School laboratory. His father Felipe Tolentino taught and pioneered retinal surgery at Harvard, and his son certainly followed in his footsteps. 

Today, Dr. Tolentino is a board-certified ophthalmologist, Florida Top Doc, Leading Physician of the World and Peoples’ Choice Recipient. Patients can see him at Palm Beach Eye Center, with locations in Lake Worth, Delray Beach, Lakeland, and The Villages, FL. where he treats patients with macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment, macular puckers and floaters. Palm Beach Eye Centers boasts state-of-the-art technologies, access to clinical trials, and cutting edge minimally invasive surgeries. “Throughout my career, I’ve developed many treatments for retinal and macular disease” he says. “When you’ve invented treatments and use them to save patients vision daily, that is a unique privilege.” 

He continues to develop new concepts in retinal care and has given over 200 international lectures. In fact, he developed one of the largest retinal trial programs in the world serving as principal investigator for over 150 clinical trials. He is currently developing novel treatments for late-stage dry macular degeneration and True Blue spectrum protecting glasses to prevent macular degeneration. “I never give up on any eye and work tirelessly to preserve my patients’ vision with the latest technologies like painless eye injection, nucleotide therapeutics and small gauge macular/retinal surgery.” 

Dr. Tolentino earned his BA at Brown University and his MD at UMass Medical School. He completed his internship, retina research fellowship and ophthalmic residency all at Harvard Medical School. In the Harvard lab of Dr. Judah Folkman he developed Avastin, a cancer drug, into an eye injection, leading to other eye injections (ie.  lucentis, eyelea) for macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and vein occlusions. He subsequently joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania where he taught future retinal surgeons. He moved on to Florida to focus on his main passion which is offering state of the art care and surgery to macular/retinal patients with compassion and a smile.