Dr. Geoffrey Tabin putting the fun meter in the red zone.

Geoffrey Tabin, MD

Co-director Himalayan Cataract Project

Dr. Geoffrey Tabin is Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and Director of the Division of International Ophthalmology at the John A Moran Eye Center, University of Utah. He graduated from Yale University and then earned an MA in Philosophy at Oxford University on a Marshall Scholarship. He brought his interest in moral philosophy and health care delivery to Harvard Medical School where he received his MD in 1985. After a climbing trip to Nepal on which he became the first ophthalmologist to summit Mt. Everest, he watched a Dutch team perform cataract surgery on a woman who had been blind for three years. Before surgery she could not detect the motion of a hand two inches from her face. After the surgery she could see. At the time no native doctor in Nepal was performing modern cataract surgery under a microscope or with a lens implant. Dr. Tabin realized that to solve the problem of blindness in the developing world would require a two-pronged approach: create tertiary centers of excellence in ophthalmic service and establish primary regional clinics staffed by physicians specifically trained in eye care. Moreover, Dr. Tabin concluded that these solutions could only be achieved by educating and empowering local doctors.

After completing an ophthalmology residency at Brown University and a fellowship in corneal surgery in Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Tabin returned to Nepal to work with Dr. Sanduk Ruit, the first Nepali ophthalmologist to use intraocular lens implants. Dr. Tabin adopted Ruit’s methods for delivering high quality cataract surgery at a very low cost and began teaching other Nepali ophthalmologists while running the eye hospital in Biratnagar, Nepal’s second largest city. During those years, Tabin and Ruit trained the first Tibetan surgeon to perform microscopic cataract surgery and refined their method of skills-transfer via high-volume cataract camps. Dr. Tabin and Dr. Ruit vowed to add their own efforts to those of other existing eye care programs, with a goal of overcoming treatable and preventable blindness in the Himalayan region in their lifetime. Dr. Ruit established the Tilganga Eye Centre in 1994 as the first outpatient cataract surgery facility in the Himalayan region. In 1995 Dr. Ruit and Dr. Tabin formally began the Himalayan Cataract Project as a charitable foundation to support their work. From the start, the projects of the Tilganga Eye Centre have been a central focus of the Himalayan Cataract Project.

Dr. Tabin spends at least three months per year in Asia working with his Nepalese counterparts directing Tilganga Eye Centre’s efforts to provide an international standard of eye care and participating in the outreach programs. As the director of the Himalayan Cataract Project, he has over ten years experience administering an international charitable organization, which includes: coordinating fundraising; recruiting American faculty; soliciting donations of equipment; and facilitating the logistics of transporting donations and volunteers to Asia.

He is a leader in both the local ophthalmologic community and the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He is a member of the International Education Committee for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and teaches a course on cataract surgery at both the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons.

Treating every single eye as being as valuable as a life, and striving for excellence in every surgery and surgeon he trains, Dr. Tabin embodies the compassion that is the core of the medical profession. Through his work as co-director of the Himalayan Cataract Project, Dr. Tabin is making a significant difference in the world.