Erica Volker, OD

Erica Volker, OD, is an optometrist who provides comprehensive eye exams and spectacle corrections, in addition to fitting specialty contact lenses. The latter includes lenses that often help to correct for vision challenges that cannot be fully addressed with glasses and also help to protect the ocular surface.

Dr. Volker has fitted special lenses for patients with such conditions as astigmatism, presbyopia, keratoconus, corneal scarring, and those who have had corneal grafts or refractive surgery. She is experienced in fitting newer generation scleral contact lenses (large-diameter gas permeable lenses designed for particular eye conditions) that allow for greater levels of customization to challenging cases.

Dr. Volker wanted to be an optometrist since she was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. “My childhood optometrist, knowing I was following a premed major, offered to have me shadow his clinic for a day,” she says. “I was instantly taken by his relationship with his patients and his ability to make immediate positive impacts on his patients’ livelihoods through vision and ocular comfort improvements.”

Helping patients who need specialty lenses is truly fulfilling work, Dr. Volker says. “Witnessing their improved quality of life while utilizing the contact lenses I have fit for them is immensely rewarding,” she says.