Florida Retina Institute
by Jill Cousins
Florida Retina Institute has been providing excellence in treatment and surgery for vitreoretinal diseases for more than 40 years. One of the talented physicians on staff, Jaya B. Kumar, M.D., has experienced firsthand why the practice has been so successful.
Dr. Kumar joined the practice in 2018 and works out of the Lake Mary office on Tuesdays. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in July 2020, she gave birth to her son, and her daughter was born this past September. Juggling a medical career and raising a family is no easy task, but the staff at Florida Retina Institute – along with help from Dr. Kumar’s husband and in-laws – make it possible.
“All of the doctors in the group are extremely supportive of one another,” says Dr. Kumar, who is married to local sports medicine doctor Vivek Kumar, D.O. “They are definitely like my extended family. We have a group of highly-trained, very ethical, very down-to-earth, smart doctors and a really caring staff that goes out of the way to make sure everyone has a good experience. It is truly an incredible place to practice.”
As a child growing up in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, Dr. Kumar also had great role models in her parents.
“Both of my parents are internists, and a lot of my family members were in medicine,” she says. “So I was very intrigued by medicine – just seeing them practice and seeing their relationships with their patients and how they really made a difference and helped a lot of people in the community.”
A self-professed math and science nerd in high school, Dr. Kumar was particularly interested in primary care and internal medicine.
“What I really liked about it was that you were kind of like Sherlock Holmes,” Dr. Kumar says, “trying to figure out what’s going on while using all these clues from labs and exam findings. I also liked being able to establish a relationship with patients and provide a continuity of care.”
When she did her ophthalmology rotation, Dr. Kumar realized the field was the perfect fit for her.
“I liked the fact that there was both medicine and surgery in ophthalmology,” she says, “and you can help make such a big difference in restoring or improving people’s vision.”
An Eye for Service
Dr. Kumar’s rewarding work also extends outside of the office. Florida Retina Institute’s doctors and staff can often be found doing community outreach work on weekends. They regularly sponsor and participate in 5K walks/runs that raise money for a variety of causes.
One of those events is the Out of the Darkness Orlando Walk, which takes place in February at Baldwin Park and raises money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Dr. Kumar introduced the cause to her fellow doctors and staff, and their response has been overwhelming.
It’s no wonder that Dr. Kumar loves coming to work every day. In addition to the Lake Mary office, she works one day a week at Florida Retina Institute’s offices in Orlando, Daytona, Orange City, and Lady Lake.
Also working at the Lake Mary office are doctors Alexander C. Barnes (Mondays), Matthew A. Cunningham (Wednesdays), Thomas A. Barnard (Thursdays), and Elias C. Mavrofrides (Fridays).
“You spend more time during the day with your work colleagues than your family, so you want to have a good experience,” Dr. Kumar says. “You want to wake up in the morning and look forward to spending time with the people you work with. That’s what I do, and it’s one of the best things about my job.”