Dr. David G. Hwang

Getting Lasik done from Dr. Hwang has been a life-changing experience for me. I have extreme myopia (-10) plus astigmatism and now that I'm 50, I also need reading glasses. I went for a LASIK evaluation and Dr. Hwang said I was a good candidate for LASIK but that he might not be able to get me to 20/20 and that I might still need to wear a -1 or -2 glasses. Fast forward to post LASIK and I'm 20/20! He did some custom adjustments for me well within safety bounds and got me to 20/20. Talk about underpromising and overdelivering! I've been wearing glasses since 3rd grade and contact lenses for over 30 years. Now I can drive, hike, work out without glasses or contact lenses. No more waking up to a blurry world! Dr. Hwang has amazing bedside manners. He's kind, courteous, patient. Even answered my questions over email. His scheduler, Don Eubank, is super thoughtful and communicative. I'd give him 10 stars if I could.

It took over 6 months to secure an appointment with Dr. Hwang via his scheduler Jasmine (which is fine, I understand he is a world renowned cornea specialist). After many unanswered voicemails and emails, I was finally able to see him on June 4th, 2021. I drove from my residence in Monterey CA to his clinic at UCSF (over 100 mi) because I was told UCSF Opthalmology was the best of the best, and perhaps they are when it comes to treating certain patients. I however, am an outlier. After my first visit I have promised myself to never go back. His scheduler, Jasmine, has by far the worst record of returning calls and emails that I have ever seen or heard of. All I had was a few simple questions to ask in the succeeding days after my appt. in regards to my cornea edema treatment, and she never answered me. I also emailed Dr. Hwang as he requested I do, and he did not respond back. In total, after several weeks of calling her direct line and sending emails to both I finally got a response back from her. This was after I emailed Patient Services about my grievances. Its a shame too, because I was very close to moving forward with the cornea operation, but the Doctor and his scheduler's lack of customer service has persuaded me to look elsewhere. Perhaps, she is too inundated with patient requests. If this is the case I think it would be wise to hire a second scheduler. In closing, I typically avoid writing reviews of places of business, products, etc. but I felt the urgency to do so here; because when it comes to healthcare, in particular vision, people should know what their getting themselves into. My insurance had to pay close to $900 for my hour long visit. I had to pay out of my pocket a deductible of $140. This does not include the parking plus gas that it took to get to San Francisco. All of this was for not. In retrospect, I would have not seen the Doctor had I seen somebody's objective review of him on a platform such as this. If you have no choice of seeing other specialists good luck and have patience. You are in for a long wait. It took over 6 months to secure an appointment with Dr. Hwang via his scheduler Jasmine (which is fine, I understand he is a world renowned cornea specialist). After many unanswered voicemails and emails, I was finally able to see him on … More

This user rated the provider, but did not write a review

Excellent ophthalmologist. He did my catarct surgeries and follow-up. I have seen him periodically since then. He is very pleasant and helpful, and very knowledgeable. I also like to ask him about his current research. I think this 'average' rating is misleading because it includes 4 excellent reviews and one poor -- resulting in the 3.2 average. A bar chart showing number of 5,4,3,2,1 ratings would be more useful, as is done on some other sites.

post surgery visit: waited over an hour and neither he nor his assistant noticed the soft lens which had been inserted during surgery. My husband saw and removed it two days later. I expected better results by now - 2 weeks after cataract surgery and still blurry vision.

Like many UCSF doctors and staff, he's extremely arrogant and treats different patients unfairly. My parents were quietly waiting in the main waiting room, like everyone else. Then all of a sudden, an Indian American doctor or staff member rudely ordered my parents out of the main waiting room, and forced them to wait outside. She gave no reason. My parents had to wait much longer than others to be seen for a simple eye exam. When my mom politely brought this up with Hwang, he got very angry, and was rude and antagonistic towards her. UCSF staff is very racist towards older Asian immigrants. The American-born Asian staff have just as much disdain as the non-Asians do. Oddly enough, they have a good website on unconscious bias, when their biases against many Asian patients is very extreme and hurtful. They don't even know they're singling us out - it's deep-seated contempt that makes them treat many Asians rudely and unfairly. We've been at UCSF for years, and it's always been disappointing and even traumatizing. It's shameful that what's supposed to be a world-class medical center, with cutting edge 'diversity training' - could have such consistently abhorrent treatment towards some Asians in SF - the best and most wrongly hated group of people.

Great experience and excellent outcome. Highly recommended.

Awesome Doctor and very nice person! I drive 4 hours to see him.

Saw this doctor years ago and I am still have eye problems with the surgery he did. My worst eye doctor experience ever. A few days after the surgery I had a partial retina detachment, went to his office for help, he left me sitting in the exam chair for almost two hours while he chatted with someone in another room. The staff then came in and told me he could not see me that day. (I walked over to another UCSF office and they did a laser surgery for the problem right away.) This doctor may be a good surgeon but when there is a problem he runs away. BEWARE.

Dr. Hwang treated me for a cataract after I had been brutilized by another Opthomologist in San Francisco. He was so pleasant and concerned about my prior bad experience. He did a remarkable and painless cataract surgery for me. My recovery was lightening quick and I can see beautifully. Best Opthomlogist in California.

Dr. Hwang is an amazing doctor, and because of him, I was able to have my cornea transplant. I would say that he has a great bedside manner, and he explained things in a way that was very easy for me to understand.