Welcome to Mississippi Eye Care! At Mississippi Eye Care, you will find eye care professionals who genuinely care about your health and are dedicated to providing exceptional personal service to everyone who walks through our door! We invite you to browse our website to learn more about our optometry services and join our patient family by scheduling an appointment.
Your Optometrists in Mississippi
Mississippi Eye Care is a full service eye and vision care provider, accepting both eye emergencies as well as scheduled appointments. Our regional presence and ten office locations make Mississippi Eye Care offices the eye and vision care providers of choice. Our experienced team of doctors offer comprehensive vision exams and specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide array of eye diseases, conditions, and problems. Patients come to Mississippi Eye Care because they know they will receive the personal attention and professional care that is our foundation. Our team is dedicated to keeping our patients comfortable and well-informed at all times.
Our Story
Dr. Kent Stribling and Dr. Gil Davis crossed paths in optometry school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), having both hailed from Mississippi towns. What they didn’t know at the time was that their formal training would eventually lead them to the opportunity to not only provide quality eye care for patients, but offer life-changing opportunities for fellow optometrists as well.
After graduating from UAB, Dr. Stribling returned to his hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi to go into practice with this father as an optometrist. Three years later when Dr. Davis graduated with his optometry degree, he followed suit, returning to Mississippi and purchasing a practice in Newton from a retiring doctor in 1989.
With 30 miles in between their respective practices in Philadelphia and Newton, the two doctors found common ground when a respected member of the optometry community, the late Dr. Ben Crawford in Louisville, Mississippi, fell ill. In an effort to help his family, Drs. Stribling and Davis volunteered their time at Crawford’s Louisville clinic. With a vested interest in helping the clinic succeed, Stribling and Davis bought Mississippi Eye Care Louisville (then Louisville Eye Care) in 1998, the first in what would eventually become the Mississippi Eye Care brand.
Next on the roster came Noxubee Eye Care in the early 2000s, which started its operations in the hospital. As the clinic grew, it warranted getting out of the hospital setting and establishing its own location in downtown Macon.
The partners’ next four locations came about under shared circumstances. Nearing retirement, Dr. Atkins sold his practice in Union, Mississippi to Stribling and Davis in 2008. At that time, Dr. Emily Fleming came on board with Mississippi Eye Care Union (then Union Eye Care). The clinic opened in January 2009. (A new location was opened in January 2012.) Then, in Bay Springs, Dr. Chris Collins—also ready for retirement—sold his family clinic to Stribling and Davis.
In June of 2014, Meridian Eye Care came to fruition in the face of another retiree—Dr. Woody Davis, a well-respected ophthalmologist in the area. Most recently, Mississippi Eye Care Starkville (formerly Crigler Family Vision Center), Mississippi Eye Care Carthage (formerly Simmons Eye Clinic), and Mississippi Eye Care Taylor (formerly Eyes, etc.) joined the MEC family.
With similar themes leading to the ten clinics now unified under the Mississippi Eye Care brand, the idea is to help local clinics maintain control of the practices that their respective communities have come to know and depend on.
Not only does the brand’s philosophy involve helping trusted community doctors ease well into retirement, but it also serves to provide a platform for young doctors to enter the field. As Mississippi Eye Care continues to thrive, the goal is to grow organically where it makes sense—not to force growth where it doesn’t. Mississippi Eye Care seeks partners, not employees.
Mississippi Eye Care prides itself on being able to recruit quality doctors to rural areas, all the while staying current with technology and services to the benefit of its valued patients.
Serving East Central Mississippi, Mississippi Eye Care is a full-service eye and vision care provider covering a range of patient needs from regular vision checks to eye emergencies and more.
Our Services
At Mississippi Eye Care, we offer full optometric services that include eye exams to diagnose vision disturbances, conditions, or possible diseases. Our doctors use only the most advanced state of art technology and eye are products available. At Mississippi Eye Care, you will find eye care professionals who genuinely care about your health and are dedicated to providing exceptional personal service to everyone who walks through our door.
We also provide referral and pre- and post-operative examinations for LASIK and other eye procedures. LASIK is a procedure for treating conditions like farsightedness (hyperopia), astigmatism, and nearsightedness (myopia).