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Joseph Simonett
( out of 145 reviews )

Joseph Simonett, MD

Languages spoken: English

Clinical Locations

Primary Location

John A. Moran Eye Center

65 N Mario Capecchi
Salt Lake City , UT 84132

Midvalley Health Center

Moran Eye Center
243 East 6100 South
Murray , UT 84107

South Jordan Health Center

Moran Eye Center
5126 West Daybreak Parkway
South Jordan , UT 84009

Joseph Simonett, MD

Dr. Simonett specializes in the medical and surgical management of diseases of the retina and vitreous and conducts related clinical research. He has clinical expertise in caring for patients with macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, retinal vascular disease, and ocular trauma.

Dr. Simonett earned his medical degree from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and completed a residency at Oregon Health and Science University’s Casey Eye Institute. There, he earned several awards, including the Kenneth Swan, MD, Resident Research Award for his work on the treatment of ocular infections and the McLean Resident Service Award for community outreach.

He then completed a vitreoretinal fellowship at the University of Utah and worked in private practice in Portland, Oregon, for three years before returning to his academic position at the Moran Eye Center.

His clinical research focuses on the safety and efficacy of retinal injections, advancing retinal imaging techniques, and identifying diseases that mimic age-related macular degeneration. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and has served as a reviewer for multiple scientific journals, including the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

He is accepting new patients at the John A. Moran Eye Center’s University, Midvalley, and South Jordan locations.

Get to know Dr. Simonett by watching his profile video.

Specialties

Board Certification

American Board of Ophthalmology

Patient Rating

4.8 /5
( out of 145 reviews )

The patient rating score is an average of all responses on our patient experience survey. The rating averages scores for all questions about care from our providers.

The scale on which responses are measured is 1 to 5 with 5 being the best score.

Patient Comments

Patient comments are gathered from our patient experience survey and displayed in their entirety. For the convenience of our visitors, some patient comments have been translated from their original language into English while preserving their original meaning as accurately as possible. Patients are de-identified for confidentiality and patient privacy.

MIDVALLEY

Go to this Doctor!!!

MORAN EYE CENTER

First encounter, Seems like a great Doctor.

MORAN EYE CENTER

The doctor was good. My complaints were about the excessively long wait to be seen, not the doctor's care itself.

MORAN EYE CENTER

Compassionate physician who fit me in to a fulllt scheduled clinic and took the time required to put me at ease. Amazing experience

MORAN EYE CENTER

Dr Simonett spoke to us while we were still in Montana. He assured us he would meet us when we got to Salt Lake City, and he did just that! We have been telling everyone who will listen about the care we received!

MIDVALLEY

Dr. Simonet listens and explains what he's doing. He seems to genuinely care about his patients and meets their needs. Eye surgery is scary and he helps you understand procedure and process better.

MIDVALLEY

Very good at explanations and has a lot of patience with you. [TRANSLATED]

MIDVALLEY

He was very knowleegeable and explained everything in great detail to me!

SOUTH JORDAN HEALTH CENTER

Excellent

Dr. Simonett specializes in the medical and surgical management of diseases of the retina and vitreous and conducts related clinical research. He has clinical expertise in caring for patients with macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, retinal vascular disease, and ocular trauma.

Dr. Simonett earned his medical degree from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and completed a residency at Oregon Health and Science University’s Casey Eye Institute. There, he earned several awards, including the Kenneth Swan, MD, Resident Research Award for his work on the treatment of ocular infections and the McLean Resident Service Award for community outreach.

He then completed a vitreoretinal fellowship at the University of Utah and worked in private practice in Portland, Oregon, for three years before returning to his academic position at the Moran Eye Center.

His clinical research focuses on the safety and efficacy of retinal injections, advancing retinal imaging techniques, and identifying diseases that mimic age-related macular degeneration. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and has served as a reviewer for multiple scientific journals, including the American Journal of Ophthalmology.

He is accepting new patients at the John A. Moran Eye Center’s University, Midvalley, and South Jordan locations.

Get to know Dr. Simonett by watching his profile video.

Board Certification and Academic Information

Academic Departments Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences -Assistant Professor (Clinical)
Board Certification
American Board of Ophthalmology

Education history

Undergraduate Genetics - University of Wisconsin B.S.
Professional Medical Medicine - Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine M.D.
Internship St. Vincent Hospital Medical Center Preliminary Intern
Residency Ophthalmology - Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health and Science University Resident
Fellowship Vitreoretinal Fellowship - University of Utah Clinical Fellow

Selected Publications

Journal Article

  1. Parravano M, De Geronimo D, Scarinci F, Querques L, Virgili G, Simonett JM, Varano M, Bandello F, Querques G (2017). Diabetic Microaneurysms Internal Reflectivity on Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography and Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Detection. Am J Ophthalmol, 179, 90-96.
  2. Capowski EE, Simonett JM, Clark EM, Wright LS, Howden SE, Wallace KA, Petelinsek AM, Pinilla I, Phillips MJ, Meyer JS, Schneider BL, Thomson JA, Gamm DM (2014). Loss of MITF expression during human embryonic stem cell differentiation disrupts retinal pigment epithelium development and optic vesicle cell proliferation. Hum Mol Genet, 23(23), 6332-44.
  3. Singh R, Shen W, Kuai D, Martin JM, Guo X, Smith MA, Perez ET, Phillips MJ, Simonett JM, Wallace KA, Verhoeven AD, Capowski EE, Zhang X, Yin Y, Halbach PJ, Fishman GA, Wright LS, Pattnaik BR, Gamm DM (2013). iPS cell modeling of Best disease: insights into the pathophysiology of an inherited macular degeneration. Hum Mol Genet, 22(3), 593-607.
  4. Lu Y, Simonett JM, Wang J, Zhang M, Hwang T, Hagag AM, Huang D, Li D, Jia Y (2018). Evaluation of Automatically Quantified Foveal Avascular Zone Metrics for Diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy Using Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci, 59(6), 2212-2221.
  5. Jia Y, Simonett JM, Wang J, Hua X, Liu L, Hwang TS, Huang D (2017). Wide-Field OCT Angiography Investigation of the Relationship Between Radial Peripapillary Capillary Plexus Density and Nerve Fiber Layer Thickness. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci, 58(12), 5188-5194.
  6. Cacciamani A, Gelso A, Simonett JM, Ripandelli G, Pileri M, Stirpe M, Scarinci F (2017). LONGITUDINAL MICROPERIMETRY EVALUATION AFTER INTRAVITREAL OCRIPLASMIN INJECTION FOR VITREOMACULAR TRACTION. Retina, 37(10), 1832-1838.
  7. Scarinci F, Fawzi AA, Shaarawy A, Simonett JM, Jampol LM (2017). LONGITUDINAL QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF OUTER RETINAL LESIONS IN ACUTE POSTERIOR MULTIFOCAL PLACOID PIGMENT EPITHELIOPATHY USING OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY. Retina, 37(5), 851-857.
  8. Narala R, Scarinci F, Shaarawy A, Simonett JM, Flaxel CJ, Fawzi AA (2016). LONGITUDINAL QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF PHOTORECEPTOR VOLUME FOLLOWING REPAIR OF MACULA-OFF RETINAL DETACHMENT. Retina, 36(8), 1432-8.
  9. Iu LP, Fan MC, Wong IY, Simonett JM, Jampol LM, Fawzi AA (2016). Diagnostic and Therapeutic Challenges. Retina, 36(7), 1403-7.
  10. Volpe NJ, Simonett J, Fawzi AA, Siddique T (2015). Ophthalmic Manifestations of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (An American Ophthalmological Society Thesis). Trans Am Ophthalmol Soc, 113, T12.
  11. Simonett JM, Scarinci F, Labriola LT, Jampol LM, Goldstein DA, Fawzi AA (2016). A case of recurrent, self-inflicted handheld laser retinopathy. J AAPOS, 20(2), 168-70.
  12. Simonett JM, Scarinci F, Picconi F, Giorno P, De Geronimo D, Di Renzo A, Varano M, Frontoni S, Parravano M (2017). Early microvascular retinal changes in optical coherence tomography angiography in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Acta Ophthalmol, 95(8), e751-e755.
  13. Pi S, Camino A, Wei X, Simonett J, Cepurna W, Huang D, Morrison JC, Jia Y (2018). Rodent retinal circulation organization and oxygen metabolism revealed by visible-light optical coherence tomography. Biomed Opt Express, 9(11), 5851-5862.
  14. Simonett JM, Huang R, Siddique N, Farsiu S, Siddique T, Volpe NJ, Fawzi AA (2016). Macular sub-layer thinning and association with pulmonary function tests in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Sci Rep, 6, 29187.
  15. Simonett JM, Sohrab MA, Pacheco J, Armstrong LL, Rzhetskaya M, Smith M, Geoffrey Hayes M, Fawzi AA (2015). A Validated Phenotyping Algorithm for Genetic Association Studies in Age-related Macular Degeneration. Sci Rep, 5, 12875.
  16. Fawzi AA, Simonett JM, Purta P, Moss HE, Lowry JL, Deng HX, Siddique N, Sufit R, Bigio EH, Volpe NJ, Siddique T (2014). Clinicopathologic report of ocular involvement in ALS patients with C9orf72 mutation. Amyotroph Lateral Scler Frontotemporal Degener, 15(7-8), 569-80.
  17. Simonett JM, Winges KM (2018). Vitreopapillary Traction Detected by Optical Coherence Tomography. JAMA Ophthalmol, 136(5), e180727.
  18. Garg PG, Simonett JM, Fawzi AA (2017). White Vitreous Deposits After Subtenon Steroid Injection: More Than Meets the Eye. JAMA Ophthalmol, 135(4), 391-392.
  19. Simonett JM, Igelman A, Taylor SC, Campbell JP, Hwang TS, Lin P, Lauer AK, Flaxel CJ (2019). Culture-Proven Endophthalmitis After Intravitreal Injection: A 10-Year Analysis. Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina, 50(1), 33-38.
  20. Simonett JM, Chan EW, Chou J, Skondra D, Colon D, Chee CK, Lingam G, Fawzi AA (2017). Quantitative Analysis of En Face Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging in Polypoidal Choroidal Vasculopathy. Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina, 48(2), 126-133.
  21. Simonett JM, Grewal DS, Fawzi AA, Lyon AT, Gill MK (2016). Fundus Autofluorescence Patterns of Submacular Fluid Resolution Following Repair of Macula-Involving Rhegmatogenous Retinal Detachments. Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina, 47(11), 1020-1029.
  22. Knoll B, Simonett J, Volpe NJ, Farsiu S, Ward M, Rademaker A, Weintraub S, Fawzi AA (2016). Retinal nerve fiber layer thickness in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: Case-control study and meta-analysis. Alzheimers Dement (Amst), 4, 85-93.

Letter

  1. Simonett JM, Shakoor A, Bernstein P (2021). Intentional retinal injury with handheld lasers is an underrecognized form of self-harm. Journal of affective disorders, 281, 503-504.