John Legarreta, MD, serves as Assistant Professor at the D'Youville University College of Osteopathic Medicine (DYU-COM), where he directs L3C, the College's longitudinal Lifelong Learning module. A board-certified ophthalmologist and fellowship-trained surgeon, he brings to the role a practice spanning private clinical care, ambulatory surgical leadership, and public health education.
As Director of L3C — a required core module every student completes across the first two years — Dr. Legarreta leads curriculum design, faculty oversight, and assessment for the thread that teaches students how to evaluate evidence, remain current, and sustain their own learning across a career in medicine.
A native of Western New York, Dr. Legarreta pursued undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with honors in Film and Television Production — an unusual foundation that continues to shape his approach to visual teaching and medical communication. He returned to Buffalo to earn his medical degree with Research Honors from the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, completed his internal medicine internship across UB's affiliated hospitals, and trained in ophthalmology at the UPMC Eye Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
He subsequently completed a fellowship in medical retina at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami, where he had earlier held a pre-doctoral research fellowship. In clinical practice, Dr. Legarreta is an owner of Legarreta Eye Care, a Western New York practice with roots dating to 1980 and offices in Williamsville, Lockport, and Cheektowaga.
His surgical practice focuses on refractive cataract surgery, including laser-assisted techniques and premium intraocular lens technology. He also serves as Medical Director and Chief Medical Officer of the Ambulatory Surgery Center of Western New York, where he oversees clinical quality, surgical operations, and regulatory readiness — work that informs his teaching on the systems, economics, and quality infrastructure that surround clinical care.
Dr. Legarreta is a Diplomate of the American Board of Ophthalmology and a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, America Society of Retina Specialists, Erie County Medical Society and Buffalo Ophthalmological Society. His research in retinal imaging has been published in Ophthalmology, the American Journal of Ophthalmology, and Retina, with more than twenty additional abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Beyond the clinic, he produces patient-facing eye health education for a national audience — an extension of his conviction that health literacy is part of a physician's responsibility.
