Dr V K Raju, a leading Virginia-based ophthalmologist, has been credited with performing more than 40,000 surgeries, which includes surgeries for 28,000 children. Actively and tirelessly on a crusade to eliminate avoidable blindness in regions plagued by poverty and poor access to medical care, Dr Raju was recently honored by First lady Cherie Blair at a prestigious event in London at the House of Lords commemorating the UN International Widows Day.

The event was organized by the Loomba Foundation, led by Lord Raj Loomba as a Loomba fellow for the mission work around the world on empowering widows. Dr Raju was visiting London to attend the launch of the London edition of the Blitz. Dr Raju met with fellow Rotarians in London to seek their support in his effort to have a world without childhood blindness.

Dr Raju, who is the president and founder of Eye Foundation of America as well as Goutami Eye Institute in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, works as a clinical professor of ophthalmology at West Virginia University. He is also the director of International Ocular Surface Society and an adjunct professor at GSL Medical School.

The Eye Foundation of America has provided its support to eye patients in 21 countries. Because Dr. Raju feels so incredibly thankful for his personal and professional gifts, he makes great effort to share those gifts with those in need of his services. He believes that medical professionals in the United States are afforded many material comforts, and as such, only voluntary service can alleviate the feeling of intellectual poverty. He gives freely of his own time, money, and medical expertise to help the less fortunate.

In between his extensive charities especially helping indigent children get eye surgery in time through the Eye Foundation of America, lecturing at a university in West Virginia, and running his own business, Dr Raju also presents lectures at major international conventions and special events at universities. Dr Raju, who has helped eye clinics in nearly two dozen countries, including Afghanistan and India, often travels to these countries to supervise surgeries and give lectures. He has been honored four times by the American Academy of Ophthalmology for his teaching, research and humanitarian work.

After getting a medical degree from Andhra University, Dr Raju traveled to the University of London to complete an ophthalmology residency and fellowship. In the US, Dr Raju completed a surgery fellowship at Louisiana State University. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and of the American College of Surgeons. In addition to being a very skilled and experienced ophthalmologist, who specializes in corneal and refractive surgery, Dr Raju has been teaching since 1976.

All the honors he has received does not excite him as much as his work for the Eye Relief Project in which he travels periodically to India and other developing countries to volunteer his surgical services and teach advances in ophthalmology. He is particularly interested in teaching and researching ways to prevent blindness in children. “It costs very little to give a second life to a child,” explains Dr Raju.

Dr Raju started the Eye Foundation of America in 1979 to make eye care available to people who cannot afford it, especially children . The foundation created the Srikiran Eye Institute in 1993, which has provided medical care to more than 450,000 patients, and the Goutami Eye Institute, in 2006, which helps thousands of patients, many at no cost. According to the Eye Foundation of America Website, 13 million people are blind in India, and 81 percent of this blindness is caused by cataracts.

Dr Raju’s work focuses on the prevention of blindness in children and resolving them early with latest technology. “Just a 30-minute operation can cure blindness for 70-plus years,” he says. Although the Eye Foundation of America serves people of all ages, it has a special responsibility for children because it is they who have the most to lose. “Visually impaired or blind children grow up without the same advantages as sighted children. Unable to read and write, they often cannot support themselves as adults and become a burden on their families and communities.

Education is a great equalizer for children from impoverished families. lt can allow them to lead productive lives full of opportunity,” he explains. Dr Raju says half of all childhood blindness can be avoided by treating diseases early and by correcting abnormalities at birth. Such medical and surgical interventions usually take little time and are inexpensive. Nowhere else does so little time and money go so far, he asserts.