Ophthalmologist
Dr. Stanley Pletcher is a comprehensive ophthalmologist with a focus on oculoplastics. He has vast experience in cataract surgery and eyelid procedures such as blepharoplasty and ptosis repair (drooping eyelids), and he also enjoys helping patients with lacrimal system issues and tearing.
He grew up in Elkhart, Indiana, and attended Elkhart Central High School before entering Goshen College, where he received his B.A. in biology in 1986. He then earned his M.D. at the Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis, interned at St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1990–91, and completed his ophthalmology residency at Indiana University in 1994. Since residency he has served as a summer emergency ophthalmologist in Alaska and practiced for three years in Harlan, Kentucky.
Dr. Pletcher joined Great Lakes Eye Care in 1997 and has been here full time except for 2010–2012, when he and his family spent two years serving in Ecuador, helping to start an eye surgery program at a mission hospital near the jungle. He performs all of the oculoplastics procedures for the practice and completed his third board certification in 2015.
He travels yearly to Ecuador and has trained other ophthalmologists in manual small-incision cataract surgery, a special mission technique. He founded the Christian Eye Network and Global Sight Alliance, has served on the board of the Christian Ophthalmology Society, and is co-founder of eyeMobil Innovations, which creates portable products for mission work.
Dr. Pletcher’s wife, Shelley, is a graduate of the University of Kentucky with a master’s in community nursing. They have four children — Matthew, Erin, Jocelyn, and Tori — and attend Riverside Church in South Bend.