Heroes of Orbis: Dr. Daniel Neely M.D.

Since 2002, Dr. Neely has invested much of his time training and mentoring our eye care partners online, in local hospitals & on the Flying Eye Hospital.

Gallery: Dr. Neely's incredible work in action

When he's not working with Orbis, Dr. Neely is professor of ophthalmology and a paediatric ophthalmologist at the Indiana University School of Medicine department of ophthalmology at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute.

He graduated from Ohio State University College of Medicine in 1993 and has been in practice for 26 years. He completed a residency at the University of Texas Health System. His specialties are:

• glasses and refractive errors (nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism), amblyopia (lazy eye)
• surgical and nonsurgical treatments for eye muscle disorders (strabismus)
• paediatric cataracts and intraocular lens implants
• paediatric glaucoma
• retinoblastoma
• hemangiomas
• eyelid surgeries (ptosis)
• dermoids
• retinopathy of prematurity (ROP)
• telemedicine

As an invaluable member of our Volunteer Faculty and Cybersight lead, Dr. Neely has completed over 1,000 online consultations with doctors around the world in his 18 years with Orbis - including live video consultations and mentoring with a long-term partner in Syria.

He has traveled with Orbis to projects in Vietnam, Cambodia, Jamaica, India, Peru, Zambia, Uganda, South Africa and Mongolia - usually spending one week on the plane and one week in a local hospital.

Dan told us: "Working for Orbis is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. I’ve flown to countries like Cambodia and Ethiopia on board Orbis’s Flying Eye Hospital and helped train hundreds of local eye doctors using the onboard facilities.

"I’ve witnessed incredible things – children seeing their mothers’ faces for the very first time. Grandparents whose vision has been restored after years of suffering in the dark. We come here as teachers, but I learn just as much as the people I am teaching. It’s always special to see how things are done differently under different environments. And it’s inspiring to see the dedication of local physicians who work under very challenging circumstances with a very poor population.

Dr. Neely has been working with Orbis for many years and is a big proponent of our teaching and training methods: “Charities give people things … money, supplies, care. Orbis gives people knowledge, the most powerful thing. We empower people to improve their own situation and we empower them to pass that on to other people in their area. We teach people how to become the teachers and that ripple effect is exponential and I think that’s the power of what Orbis does and that’s what makes it different from any other medical organisation in the world.”

We would like to say a big thank you to Dr. Dan Neely for all he has done for Orbis, and our partners round the world, over the last 18 years. Our Volunteers Faculty and medical staff are the heartbeat of our organisation - we would be nothing without their skill and dedication to vision.