Fwd: New Book - Second Suns: Two Doctors and Their Amazing Quest to Restore Sight and Save Lives

New Book "Second Suns: Two Doctors and Their Amazing Quest to Restore Sight and Save Lives" Spotlights the Work of Drs. Sanduk Ruit and Geoffrey Tabin to Eliminate Avoidable Blindness in the Developing World

 

Book by Bestselling Author David Oliver Relin to be Published June 18

 

New York, NY --May 14, 2013 – Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Dr. Geoffrey Tabin of the Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) (www.cureblindness.org) are on a mission to eradicate needless blindness in the developing world. The inspiring story of these two very different doctors – united in their mutual dedication to bringing the highest quality cataract surgical care to the most destitute and remote populations in the world - is told in vivid detail in Second Suns (Random House) by David Oliver Relin.

 

Second Suns chronicles the journeys of Ruit, a Nepalese surgeon who adapted a system of high-quality, high-volume, low-cost cataract care to the most inaccessible regions of the Himalaya, and Tabin, an accomplished ophthalmologist and mountaineer from Chicago who was the fourth person to scale the highest peak on all seven continents. The unlikely pair is training a generation of eye care professionals to increase the capacity of developing countries to provide eye care for their own citizens.

 

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally and can be treated with a 10-minute surgery. In wealthy countries, cataracts typically are removed when there is mild visual impairment, and surgery is commonly available. However, in poorer countries the condition often progresses to total blindness, and treatment for many is unavailable. The World Health Organization estimates that 18 million people remain blind from cataracts.

 

Ruit and Tabin co-founded the non-profit Himalayan Cataract Project in 1995 to fulfill their personal goals of eradicating as much unnecessary blindness as possible and to support the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Nepal. Tilganga, a state-of-the-art eye care institution, serves as HCP's training ground for ophthalmologists, eye care workers, and administrators from all over the world.

In Second Suns, Relin takes readers from improvised plywood operating tables in the farthest reaches of the Himalayas to state-of-the-art surgical centers at top U.S. universities to one-room village hospitals in Africa. These humanitarian doctors and their ophthalmic recruits are restoring sight to patients around the world – for a fraction of what it costs in the U.S. Relin tells the stories of many of their patients, from women who need their eyesight so they can work as seamstresses and feed their families, to elderly men who can't walk treacherous mountain trails unaided, to cataract-stricken children who have not seen their mothers' faces for years.

 

About Himalayan Cataract Project

The Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP), a nonprofit organization, works to eradicate preventable and curable blindness through high quality ophthalmic care, education and the establishment of world-class eye care infrastructure in developing countries.  Today, HCP (www.cureblindness.org) reaches the most inaccessible patients wherever its services are needed through a combination of teaching ophthalmic care at all levels, establishing self-sustaining eye care centers and supporting partners to perform high quality, low cost cataract operations in 10 minutes with excellent outcomes.

 

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