ASCRS News: ASCRS Foundation Update
Summer 2025
Meet the Operation Sight Volunteer of the Year
The ASCRS Foundation is pleased to announce that this year’s Operation Sight Volunteer of the Year is Omar Shakir, MD.
Dr. Shakir, who practices at Coastal Eye in Greenwich, Connecticut, decided early on in his career that he wanted to be involved with humanitarian/volunteer eye surgery.
“I opened my practice straight out of fellowship about 7 years ago. I’m classically trained in vitreoretinal surgery, but I knew coming out of fellowship that I wanted to do both cataract surgery and retina surgery,” he said. However, there were not a lot of opportunities to combine the two types of surgery. “I figured I had to open my own practice,” he said. “I’m passionate about doing total eyecare and I don’t want to limit myself to one thing. I basically do everything that I’m comfortable with.”
Dr. Shakir said he was fortunate that his practice grew quickly, and he had a lot of success, including word of mouth and good referral sources for patients. “One thing led to another, and 4 years ago, I opened up my own surgical center onsite, and that’s where I perform all my procedures now.”
But it’s the story behind opening his own surgical center that motivated Dr. Shakir to get involved in volunteer surgery and providing eyecare to all patients, regardless of their economic means. “I’m big on not turning away anyone in my practice. I don’t think there’s any conflict of interest in charging high prices and having a premium practice model with also offering very good quality community/charity care. We run a premium practice and do refractive lens exchange and premium cataract surgery, but I also don’t ever want to turn a patient away if they need my help,” he said.
Source: ASCRS Foundation
Initially, Dr. Shakir was operating at an ambulatory surgery center near his practice. He had an experience where a patient needed a complex vitrectomy repair, and the patient’s daughter, who he was visiting from another country, referred him to Dr. Shakir. “He only had one eye, and that eye had a vitreous hemorrhage and retinal detachment. He was blind, and it was completely unexpected because he was 20/20 before that,” Dr. Shakir said. “It was a simple vitrectomy repair, and he [would be able to] see immediately. I just had to find time at the surgery center.” Dr. Shakir called the surgical center and explained that he had a patient who was uninsured (technically he had international insurance). He planned to forego his professional fee to operate on the patient and asked if the surgical center could help keep the price low for cash pay. However, they said retina surgery was expensive, coming back with a price of $20,000 to perform the procedure.
“There was nothing I could do. My hands were tied. My patient could not get care, and there was nothing I could do to get a reasonable price,” Dr. Shakir said. “That was the moment that I decided that either I’m creating my own surgery center or I’m figuring this problem out because I’m never doing this to another patient again. That was the fire that was lit underneath me to figure it out, and it was within a year after that that I built my own surgery center.”
In addition to Operation Sight, Dr. Shakir does many community charity cases at his practice. “If patients can’t pay, we’ll still do the surgery.” He added that another important aspect is industry partnership, and he’s formed good relationships with many companies, noting that it’s important for industry to be a part of the solution as well to get these patients care. “We’ve formed great partnerships with industry, and we get lenses and viscoelastic, everything we need for a charity case,” he said.
Dr. Shakir got involved with the ASCRS Foundation and Operation Sight when ASCRS Foundation Program Manager & Communications Liaison Sarah Duval reached out to him, and he said he was more than happy to help with cataract cases. “One of the patients she sent us needed retina surgery combined with the cataract, and we were able to do all of that together.”
Dr. Shakir said he was always disappointed that he didn’t have the chance to participate in international mission trips because the timing wasn’t right, but he’s happy to be involved in charity work in his own community. “Domestically, there’s plenty of work to be done here, so that’s filled the void of not being able to go internationally. For anyone who’s thinking about this and can’t see themselves going on a mission trip, there are plenty of people domestically who need care,” he said. “In your local community, you will find people who are lost in the system because everyone has sort of kicked them around, and they’ve been demoralized. They don’t think they can get access to care. Once you put it out there, it only takes a few calls to some primary care offices saying if you have patients who show up needing eyecare, we’ll see them. Make it part of your career that you do pro bono work as a certain percentage of your cases. It boosts morale all around. All of our staff in the clinic also serve on the operating room side, so to watch them be a part of the process and see these people get taken care of shows that we’re in it for the right reasons. We’re not just doing this as a premium model.”
Dr. Shakir said his staff helps get the word out in the community that the practice is more than willing to help anyone who needs eyecare.
It is met with some controversy, Dr. Shakir said. “You have to develop thick skin. I developed that straight out of fellowship wanting to do both retina and cataract surgery,” he said. “There have been situations where patients have shown the willingness and ability to pay but they didn’t have insurance, so we have cash prices set. I’ve had criticism from people who don’t know enough about me and my practice and what I’m charging for a retinal detachment repair from an uninsured patient. It’s just based on the ability to pay. A lot of it is getting out in the public with the messaging and saying it’s not in conflict with doing charitable care to also have a premium model that generates a lot of money, and that’s part of what subsidizes this.”
Congratulations to Dr. Shakir on being named this year’s Operation Sight Volunteer of the Year, and thank you to Sight Sciences, this year’s sponsor of the award.
Party for a Purpose raises money for ASCRS Foundation
The ASCRS ASOA Party for a Purpose took place on April 25, and Hollywood glitz and glam were on full display. Donations from the event benefitted the ASCRS Foundation.
The ASCRS Foundation raised more than $180,000, a record amount, and would like to extend a special thanks to everyone who voted for their favorite teams. The ASCRS Foundation would like to thank iOR Partners for their generous $35,000 match donation. The Foundation would also like to thank the teams who participated in this year’s event, showcasing their chosen movies with amazing costumes, music, dancing, and more.
Grease team: Neda Shamie, MD, Yari Mitchell, Lisa Feulner, MD, PhD, Arjan Hura, MD, Katy Hatch, MD, Alice Epitropoulos, MD, Alex Knezevic, MD, Priya Mathews, MD, Caroline Watson, MD, Amir Moarefi, MD, Jugoslav Isakovic, Mitra Nejad, MD, Sheri Rowen, MD, Nishant Maller, and Karolinne Rocha, MD, PhD
Barbie team: Zaina Al-Mohtaseb, MD, Cathleen McCabe, MD, Dagny Zhu, MD, Sarah Duval, Abby Markward, Laura Rousseau, Gary Wortz, MD, Morgan Micheletti, MD, David Chang, MD, Eric Donnenfeld, MD, Paul Singh, MD, Carey Powers, and Jimmy O’Connor
Back to the Future team: Daniel Chang, MD, Audrey Rostov, MD, Jennifer Loh, MD, Nandini Venkateswaran, MD, Katy Hatch, MD, Lance Kugler, MD, and Rahul Tonk, MD
Top Gun team: Erin Powers, Blake Williamson, MD, Julie Schallhorn, MD, Michael Greenwood, MD, Evan Schoenberg, MD, Manjool Shah, MD, Beau Swann, MD, Arsham Sheybani, MD, and Bennett Walton, MD
Saturday Night Fever team: Carrie Jacobs, COE, Patti Barkey, COE, Ben Seals, MBA, Kati Read, COE, Gretchen Kimble, JD, Debbie Davis, COE, Ashley Herrera, COE, Hayley Boling, COE, and Sam Winnegrad, MBA
Marvel team: John Hovanesian, MD, Marjan Farid, MD, Jim Mazzo, Nicole Fram, MD, Sumit “Sam” Garg, MD, Ashraf Ahmad, MD, Francis Mah, MD, Nathan Radcliffe, MD, Matt Wade, MD, Preeya Gupta, MD, and Rich Small
Visit https://EyeWorldOnsite.org to see photos from the event.
ASCRS Foundation hosts symposium at Annual Meeting
The ASCRS Foundation symposium during the 2025 Annual Meeting provided attendees a comprehensive approach to ophthalmic care in areas of humanitarian crises. Discussion included unique challenges faced by practitioners in these environments and the need for all international volunteers to be aware of safe practices and protocols to keep patients and team members safe. Topics included identifying risks, understanding leadership responsibilities, and determining best practices. Surgical interventions, telemedicine applications, team safety, strategies for triaging care, and maintaining professional leadership in challenging environments were also covered.
The ASCRS Foundation would like to thank Johnson & Johnson Vision for sponsoring this symposium.
