Indian American physician Dr. Vadrevu Raju inducted into Hall of Fame of the University of Toledo

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NEW YORK: Indian American physician Dr. Vadrevu Raju, founder and medical director of the Eye Foundation of America, was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences earlier this month, along with the Galilee Medical Center, and Donald C Mullen.

For the past four decades, Raju has been on a crusade to eliminate avoidable blindness in parts of the world plagued by poverty and poor access to medical care.

Born in India, he earned a medical degree from Andhra University and completed an ophthalmology residency and fellowship at the Royal Eye Group of Hospitals in London. He is board-certified in ophthalmology and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons. He is a clinical professor at West Virginia University, the section chief of the Ophthalmology Department at Monongalia General Hospital, and runs a private practice.

Raju is the founder and medical director of the Eye Foundation of America. World-class state-of-the art services are rendered through traveling eye camps and permanent brick-and-motor hospitals built by the foundation, including the Goutami Eye Institute that Raju helped found in 2006.

Since the inception of the Eye Foundation of America, these camps and institutes have facilitated more than 600 physician exchanges, trained more than 200 ophthalmologists, served 2 million patients, and performed 300,000 vision-saving surgeries in 21 countries operating on three guiding principles: service, teaching and research.

In children, the main focus of efforts by the Eye Foundation of America, the gift of sight results in 75 years of a full and productive life. No child will be denied treatment, and children from around the world can come to receive world-class services.

Raju has said, in a statement, “If blindness is preventable, then let us do it big.”