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David Heiden, MD, to receive AAO's Outstanding Humanitarian Service Award
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David Heiden, MD, will receive the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s 2018 Outstanding Humanitarian Service Award for his work bringing blindness prevention techniques to HIV/AIDS patients in politically unstable and poverty-stricken areas, according to a press release.
Heiden was nominated by the Pacific Vision Foundation and the Seva Foundation, where he serves as medical director of the AIDS Eye Initiative.
He pioneered training providers to use eye exams to diagnose and treat cytomegalovirus retinitis in AIDS patients, the release said. If left untreated, the disease can increase AIDS-related deaths.
Workshops based on his training are now available in China, India, Russia, Ukraine and Myanmar.
“David Heiden’s leadership has created a breakthrough in preventing blindness in HIV/AIDS patients, and he continues to expand the reach of this critically important effort,” Kate Moynihan, executive director of Seva, said in the release. “The foundational work Dr. Heiden is doing with our AIDS Eye Initiative is helping Seva move toward our goal of providing 1 million sight-saving surgeries a year by 2020 and serving millions more people a year with eye care services.”