Dr. Geoff Tabin, Co-Founder of the Himalayan Cataract Project

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It would be hard to get an accurate count of the number of lives that Dr. Geoff Tabin has either saved or improved, often by his own hands. The figure is in the thousands because he and Dr. Sanduk Ruit are co-founders of the Himalayan Cataract Project. As its website name, cureblindness.org suggests, the project provides high-quality eye care in some of the most remote or under-served parts of the world. And, as Geoff Tabin, Professor of Ophthalmology and Global Medicine at Stanford, will happily tell you, this project, his life’s work, never would have happened had it not been for some serious serendipity.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> <br /></span></p> <h1><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Key Takeaways:</strong></span></h1> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[:23] Ray Hoffman introduces Dr. Geoff Tabin, Co-Founder of the Himalayan Cataract Project.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[1:05] In the poorest countries, 85% of blindness is preventable or treatable. Of all cases of blindness, 50% are from treatable cataracts.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[1:52] Dr. Tabin was specifically inspired by a Dutch ophthalmologist running a humanitarian program called Eye Care Foundation Himalaya doing lens implants in Nepal. These implants altered lives and the welfare of families.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[2:34] Dr. Tabin talks about his educational path and what inspired him at Yale and Oxford, England. On a mountain-climbing scholarship named for Andrew Irvine, he went to Asia and Africa to climb. He observed first-hand the disparity between the haves and the have-nots, regarding medical care.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[4:24] Dr. Tabin matriculated at Harvard Medical School with the intent of working in global medicine to bridge the gap in care between the wealthy countries and the poor countries.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[4:47] In 1988, Dr. Tabin climbed Mt. Everest while he w