Dean Mcgee Eye Institute history

He lured McGee to Anderson & Kerr by making him a vice president in 1937.

In 1943 he became governor of Oklahoma.

In 1945 McGee began studying the sea floor off the coast of Louisiana, because he was convinced that at least one-fifth of the world's oil could be found under the oceans.

He was rewarded for these efforts when the company name was rechristened Kerr-McGee & Company and by his promotion to president in 1946.

In 1954 the company's board of directors named him chief executive officer.

Gaston Litton, History of Oklahoma at the Golden Anniversary of Statehood, Volume 3 (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1957).

A small group of prominent Oklahoma City citizens, led by ophthalmologist Richard A. Clay, MD, founded the Oklahoma Eye Foundation in 1965 with the specific goal of establishing an eye institute.

Dean A. McGee, President of the Kerr-McGee Corporation, developed a retinal detachment in 1971.

Doctor Thomas E. Acers was named as the first full-time Chair of the University of Oklahoma Department of Ophthalmology in 1972.

Led by oil pioneer and philanthropist Dean A. McGee, funds were raised to establish an eye institute, and the Dean McGee Eye Institute opened its doors to patients in 1975.

On September 15, 1989, Dean A. McGee died in Oklahoma City after a brief illness.

Since 2000, the first-time pass rates on the American Board of Ophthalmology’s written and oral examinations are 100% and 97.5% respectively with an average score on the written examination near the 80th percentile.

Since 2007, four past or current members of the DMEI/OU faculty have served as president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and DMEI’s second president, Doctor David W. Parke II, now serves as chief executive officer of the Academy.