Mission
Strengthening ophthalmic education in partnership with eye care professionals, with a special focus on low-resource and underserved countries.
Vision
A world where every patient has access to improved eye health care in their communities, making the prevention of blindness and maintenance of high-quality vision accessible to all.
Values
The Ophthalmology Foundation prioritizes:
- equity, inclusion, ethical and responsible behavior
- fostering an organization of many voices, perspectives, and backgrounds
- and, ensuring our programs represent, resonate with, and positively impact the varied communities we work with.
Strategy
View the Ophthalmology Foundation Strategic Vision.
We support and create programs that advance and facilitate the teaching skills of medical teachers, with a particular focus on ophthalmologists in low-resource and underserved countries.
We will equip those involved in the training of eye care professionals with the attitude, knowledge and skills needed to be effective educators.
We will encourage the training of eye care teams composed of ophthalmologists, allied ophthalmic personnel and administrators, which is the most efficient way of improving access to quality eye care in a context of limited resources.
Resources invested in education have a multiplier effect of benefitting many patients: improving the quality and longevity of their eyesight, as well as averting the multiple effects that follow a person’s vision loss or impairment.
The Ophthalmology Foundation is dedicated to improving eye care and advancing scientific ophthalmology through deeper support of international ophthalmic education. Our special emphasis on bringing state-of-the-art educational concepts and original content to low-resource and underserved countries keeps the focus on our ultimate goal: making prevention of blindness and maintenance of high-quality vision accessible to people of all nations.
Where We Work
The Ophthalmology Foundation is a global organization based in San Francisco, USA. The International Ophthalmological Fellowship Foundation is based in Munich, Germany. We focus our education programs in low income regions and nations where access to ophthalmic care may be inadequate. We have Board members representing all world regions, many subspecialties and supporting industry.
Our Programs
The Ophthalmology Foundation is proud to support faculty development to build in-region program capabilities, high impact subspecialty fellowships created and managed by the International Ophthalmologic Fellowships Foundation e.V., and international examinations and accreditation to drive a consistent standard of excellence for ophthalmic education.
History
The Ophthalmology Foundation is the successor organization of the International Council of Ophthalmology Foundation (ICOF). As a co-founder of the ICOF, our Vice President Bruce Spivey led members in raising funds for the International Council of Ophthalmology to advance educational programs within the global ophthalmic community.
For more than 20 years, Bruce and his colleagues at the ICOF worked toward multiple goals in furthering ophthalmic care and continuing professional education, primarily through programs focused on increasing the abilities of educators in training better practitioners. Eventually, the goals of the ICOF grew beyond the initial founding principles, and by mutual decision the ICOF and International Council of Ophthalmology decided to pursue different philanthropic programming.
The Ophthalmology Foundation was born out of this experience and the ultimate goal of creating a global network of ophthalmologists, administrators, and ophthalmic educators who will be able to apply the most recent advances in the practice of ophthalmic care, regardless of geography or income levels. The Ophthalmology Foundation believes that by incorporating the latest thinking on how to deliver education virtually and in-person, we can increase the training opportunities for ophthalmologists worldwide, developing doctors who will be able to improve their local systems, and ultimately increasing access to care through better practices and increased capacity.
Advisory Committee
Because the primary mission of the Ophthalmology Foundation is to provide programs for underserved and low-resource countries, we rely on an Advisory Committee of respected ophthalmologists from around the world to provide input on our programs. As experienced educators in their own countries, they provide us perspective on whether our materials suit the needs of their region, ensuring our programs truly have a global reach.
We appreciate the contributions of time and expertise from everyone on our Advisory Committee:
Abdulaziz AlRajhi
Fernando Arévalo
Alberto Arntz
Alp Atik
Maria Auxiliadora
Raj Azad
Jesus Barrio Barrio
Juan Batlle
Kathy Cao
Pedro Carricondo
R.V. Paul Chan
Paulo Dantas
William Dean
Ángela Fernández
Matthew Gearinger
Catherine Green
Ashok Grover
Andrzej Grzybowski
Marko Hawlina
Martine Jager
Van Lansingh
Xiaoxin Li
Heather Mack
Ciku Mathenge
Charles Mcghee
Ilhem Mili Boussen
Janos Nemeth
John Nkurikiye
Amel Ouertani
Venkatesh Prajna
Peter Quiros
Marie Louise Roed Rasmussen
George Saleh
Arvind Singh
Bernardo Soares
Grace Sun
Geoff Tabin
Mark Tso
Jorge Valdez
Anthony A Vipin Das
Eduardo Viteri
Marlene Vogel
Ian Yeo Yew San
Chee Chew Yip
Our Partners
The Ophthalmology Foundation is grateful for our partners who are committed to our mission and contribute to and help disseminate the work that we do.
Membership
The Ophthalmology Foundation is a proud member of the IAPB.
