BHVI

Dr Gullapalli 'Nag' Rao MBBS PhD

Dr Nag Rao is Chair of LV Prasad Eye Institute and Chair of the International Centre for Eyecare Education (ICEE).

An entrepreneur of solutions for eye health, Dr Rao is widely respected for the creation of sustainable, high quality, comprehensive eye care delivery and as the father of the vision centre model which is transforming vision care across India and inspiring development worldwide.

Dr Rao established LVPEI, one of the world’s leading eye research hospitals, after a successful career in the US as an academic Ophthalmologist. He received his basic medical education in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, and completed his postgraduate residency training at the All India Institute for Medical Sciences, New Delhi. In the US, he trained at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, and later at the School of Medicine, University of Rochester, where he continued as a faculty member until 1986.

Dr Rao has specialised in diseases of the cornea, eye banking and corneal transplantation, community eye health, eye care policy and planning. He has published over 250 papers and contributed several book chapters. From 2004-2008, he served as Chair of the Board of Trustees, President and CEO of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, where he played an important role leading VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, the global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.

Dr Rao’s vision and determination to improve access to eye care knows no boundaries. With his team at LVPEI he has succeeded in delivering high quality, low-cost sustainable eye care to the Indian population, and in doing so has developed a successful model that is now being adopted in developing countries around the world to deliver basic eye care to people in need.