Thomas Lazzarini, MD

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Thomas Lazzarini, MD

Starting Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Thomas Lazzarini was born in Colorado Springs but moved to Los Angeles County during elementary school and considers Southern California home. He received his B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale College. After college, he spent a year in rural Borneo, Indonesia studying the impact of illegal logging on human health. Prior to medical school, he performed research in a neuroscience laboratory at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, joining his wife, Melissa, who was attending UCSD at that time. It was during this time that they first fell in love with San Diego.

He returned to Yale for Medical School, where he graduated cum laude. He was initially considering psychiatry, but after sitting at the side microscope and watching a cataract surgery, he realized that his future lay in ophthalmic surgery. He moved to Miami for his ophthalmology residency at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, where he became interested in retinal pathology and medicine through working in the Eye Emergency Department lasering retinal tears, managing ocular trauma, and treating complications related to diabetic retinopathy. He stayed at Bascom Palmer to complete his vitreoretinal surgical fellowship and chief residency, during which time he also served as the Co-Director of Ocular Trauma for Miami Dade County. As a fellow, Dr. Lazzarini won a retinal surgery video competition with a video of a large intraocular foreign body extraction following a motor vehicle accident.

Dr. Lazzarini comes to Retina Consultants San Diego following a stint in the Inland Empire. He currently lives in Carlsbad with his wife, Melissa, and three young children, Adrian (4), Alessandra (2), and Isabelle (4 months). When he is not in clinic or the operating room, he enjoys scootering and biking with his children, surfing the north county waves, and gardening.