Night for Sight

Dr. Sanduk Ruit

Based on calculations from several sources, it is now estimated that more than 4 million of the world's 20 million people with cataract blindness have already had their sight restored through Dr. Ruit's pioneering SCIS surgery and low-cost artificial lenses.

This year's Night for Sight keynote speaker is Dr. Sanduk Ruit, a Nepalese ophthalmologist and adjunct professor at the Moran Eye Center, University of Utah. Dr. Ruit pioneered the process of sutureless small-incision cataract surgery (SICS), which includes low-cost, high-quality replacement lenses, for people living in remote and underserved regions of the world.

Based on calculations from several sources, it is now estimated that more than 4 million of the world's 20 million people with cataract blindness have already had their sight restored through Dr. Ruit's pioneering SCIS surgery and low-cost artificial lenses.
In many of these areas, though he humbly rejects the title, Dr. Ruit is referred to as the "God of Sight." His pioneering procedure is nicknamed a "Ruitectomy."

An ethnic Sherpa who grew up poor in a remote mountain village of Nepal on the border near Tibet, Dr. Ruit's world-changing surgical technique allows cataracts to be removed safely through two small incisions. As with standard cataract surgeries, the natural lens is then replaced by a tiny artificial lens. The procedure is performed without sutures and completed in five to ten minutes. With the cost of the surgery and lens still prohibitive in most poor areas of the world, Dr. Ruit devised an international standard artificial lens (called an IOL for intraocular lens) that could be produced for far less than those manufactured in developed countries. The cost of high-quality US IOLs, which previously cost around $100 in developing countries, were suddenly reduced to $5. The "Ruitectomy" has spread from Nepal to developing countries worldwide for the last two decades. Thousands of doctors in developing areas around the world have since been trained and are training others in this procedure.

Dr. Ruit alone has restored sight to 100,000 cataract victims over his 30-year career. For instance, he and a team from Tilganga performed the first modern cataract surgery in North Korea in 1995, restoring sight to nearly 1,000 people while training and equipping the country's first microsurgeons.

The Vision of the Moran Eye Center is that no person with a blinding eye condition, eye disease, or visual impairment should be without hope, understanding, and treatment. This is also the overarching mission of Dr. Ruit, regardless of the person's ability to pay. For the poor and underserved, he wants to provide vision care that rivals the highest quality of health care throughout the world.

Dr. Ruit backs up this philosophy with his work. He helped found the Tilganga Eye Centre in 1994 (now the Tilganga Eye Institute). Tilganga treats 2,500 patients each week, and surgery fees are waived for the neediest. Dr. Ruit also regularly performs dozens of exacting cataract operations at eye camps over a 12-hour day. He often remarks that "the surgical chair is the most comfortable place on Earth that I have."