Physician Profiles
Since 1992, more than 67 ophthalmologists and reconstructive surgeons have gone to Armenia, at their own expense, to help fight blindness and to provide education and training for Armenian ophthalmologists and primary care physicians. Typically, they go twice a year on medical missions in the Spring and Fall and have performed more than 15,000 surgeries and procedures and distributed over millions in medicine and supplies.
"Going blind means just about the same thing in any country," says UCI ophthalmologist and EyeCare physician, Richard Hill, M.D. The mission of the Armenian Eye Care Project is to fight blindness in Armenia and to make 21st Century eye care available and affordable to every Armenian child and adult.
Armenia's critical need for eye care is a result of a number of factors from serious eye trauma complications—many from the land mines that still dot playgrounds and schoolyards—combined with a variety and severity of eye diseases not seen in other countries. Particularly troubling is the alarming rate of juvenile diabetes and diabetes—related ailments found in Armenian youth that are not manifested in Americans until their later years.
The Armenia EyeCare Project is a nonprofit organization governed by a volunteer board of directors and financed entirely with donations. The AECP is administered by the United Armenian Fund.
