Steven O. Anderson, MD, was nominated by the Association of Veterans Affairs Ophthalmologists to receive this year's Outstanding Humanitarian Service Award. For more than 14 years, Dr. Anderson has volunteered his time, talents and resources to serve the blind and poor in some of the neediest areas of the world, including Africa, Asia and Central America. While in private practice in the United States, Dr. Anderson regularly dedicated from two weeks to three months at a time to serve in under-served regions of the world. Dr. Anderson has also served as a clinical instructor at the University of Minnesota and the VA Hospital in Minneapolis for more than 10 years, passing on his knowledge and passion for international eye care to many resident physicians.
In 2008, Dr. Anderson accepted an invitation to help a mission hospital in Indonesia develop a new, long-term eye program to serve the poor. Accepting this invitation meant Dr. Anderson and his family would move to Indonesia and he would take on the challenge of establishing a surgical and clinical eye unit at Bethesda Hospital in the remote province of West Kalimantan (Borneo). Dr. Anderson is training an Indonesian ophthalmologist to take over the leadership of the eye program in the future. It is hoped that the eye unit at Bethesda can serve as a model to help develop similar programs in other regions of need. Since 2008, Dr. Anderson has been serving full time as an ophthalmologist in international eye care and development.
Dr. Anderson also founded an international ophthalmic mission organization, Global Eye Mission, created to facilitate the development of long-term eye-care programs in under-served regions of the world. Global Eye Mission seeks to mobilize people and resources to aid in the development of sustainable eye programs for the poor. Through Global Eye Mission, Dr. Anderson and other eye-care professionals assist programs in many regions of the world.
The approach used to create sustainable eye-care units is multi-faceted and includes not only training local ophthalmologists in the technical aspects of procedures such as manual small-incision cataract surgery and phacoemulsification, but also incorporates leadership skills to facilitate and maintain sustainable eye-care models, training support staff, and establishing clinical outreach programs to remote rural villages to bring quality eye care to those most in need.
Serving in areas of great need around the world often requires long travel and less than ideal living conditions. Dr. Anderson has spent many nights sleeping in remote villages under mosquito nets and bathing in rivers while out on surgical safaris. Recently, Dr. Anderson and his team spent a week in a remote village in rural western Tanzania where there was no running water or electricity. During that outreach, they were able to see hundreds of patients and perform sight-restoring surgeries for many bilaterally blind patients.
This level of sacrifice and commitment to serving the blind and poor in developing nations and inspiring others to do the same is rare. Dr. Anderson's commitment to service exemplifies the best of what it means to be a physician; his service is an honor to the field of ophthalmology. The Academy is privileged to honor Dr. Anderson as a recipient of this year's Outstanding Humanitarian Service Award.
