(WTVD) — Duke eye surgeon, and NC Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons member, Dr. Lloyd Williams, is on a mission to cure all blindness in Africa. He’s even traveled headlong into areas full of conflict to do it.
“One time when we went to South Sudan, two weeks after we were there, a group of people came through and killed 140 people in the village that we were in including patients we had just performed surgery on,” Williams explained.
That danger doesn’t deter Williams from reaching people in need. He just returned from South Sudan at the beginning of April for his latest trip abroad to treat patients.
Williams is the head of Duke’s Global Ophthalmology Program which he began to lead just before the pandemic hit. Now that travel has resumed, Williams spends 8 weeks a year training and working with eye doctors in some of the areas of greatest need in Africa, Asia and Central America to reduce blindness and human suffering.
“I would say that we’ve been a part of probably 5,000-6,000 surgeries, and about twice as many clinic visits in that time,” Williams added.
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