Inside Duke Medicine
Symposium explores issue of global blindness
posted November 12th, 2008A symposium co-sponsored by the Duke Eye Center and the Duke Global Health Institute will bring 14 speakers from four countries together with experience on policy and frontline efforts in global blindness.
The symposium, “Global Blindness—Integrated approaches to a cure,” will be from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13.
The program focuses on visual impairment, but the scope of the meeting is much broader with a focus on health policy, care delivery, volunteerism and challenges to implementation.
“Global Blindness—Integrated approaches to a cure” is an event meant to explore the scope of this worldwide health issue and to probe current and future solutions to these problems.
The keynote speaker is G.N. Rao, distinguished chair of international ophthalmology at the LV Prasad Eye Center. Rao hails from Hyderabad, India, and is president of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
Rao is a renowned corneal surgeon who left a large academic practice in Rochester, N.Y., to return to his home and start the LV Prasad Eye Center. This center is now recognized as a world leader in eye care and research—and accomplishes its missions by half of the patients being treated for free.
Among other speakers are Michael Brennan, president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and Geoffrey Tabin, from the University of Utah, who leads the Himalayan Cataract Project, which provides cataract and eye care in Nepal.