Fighting Global Blindness

Fighting Global Blindness
Author: Sanduk Ruit
Publisher: American Public Health Association
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2006
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780875530673

Unoperated cataract is the cause of millions of cases of visual impairment and blindness in poor populations throughout both the developing and the developed world. This wonderfully written volume shares the experiences of a team of surgeons who have demonstrated how the surgical procedures can be simplified and made more efficient, accessible, and far less expensive. It is a step-by-step manual to solving the problem where adequate surgeons can be trained to follow suit. Subject matter ranges from ways to increase demand among those who need surgery to the organization of surgical services, responsibilities among different personnel, efficient layout of clinical facilities, and how to sustain services at the least cost to those who need it most. The basic lessons in this volume will remain pertinent for decades to come and provide a blueprint worthy of mass replication.

Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative

Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 587
Release: 2017-01-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309439981

The ability to see deeply affects how human beings perceive and interpret the world around them. For most people, eyesight is part of everyday communication, social activities, educational and professional pursuits, the care of others, and the maintenance of personal health, independence, and mobility. Functioning eyes and vision system can reduce an adult's risk of chronic health conditions, death, falls and injuries, social isolation, depression, and other psychological problems. In children, properly maintained eye and vision health contributes to a child's social development, academic achievement, and better health across the lifespan. The public generally recognizes its reliance on sight and fears its loss, but emphasis on eye and vision health, in general, has not been integrated into daily life to the same extent as other health promotion activities, such as teeth brushing; hand washing; physical and mental exercise; and various injury prevention behaviors. A larger population health approach is needed to engage a wide range of stakeholders in coordinated efforts that can sustain the scope of behavior change. The shaping of socioeconomic environments can eventually lead to new social norms that promote eye and vision health. Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative: Vision for Tomorrow proposes a new population-centered framework to guide action and coordination among various, and sometimes competing, stakeholders in pursuit of improved eye and vision health and health equity in the United States. Building on the momentum of previous public health efforts, this report also introduces a model for action that highlights different levels of prevention activities across a range of stakeholders and provides specific examples of how population health strategies can be translated into cohesive areas for action at federal, state, and local levels.

Fighting Blind

Fighting Blind
Author: Ivan Castro
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2016-11-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466887982

Fighting was a practiced routine for Lieutenant Ivan Castro. But when a mortar round struck the rooftop of his sniper’s post in Iraq, he found himself in a battle more difficult than even he could have imagined. The direct hit killed two other soldiers and nearly claimed Castro’s life as well. Mangled by shrapnel and badly burned, Castro was medevac’d to Germany more dead than alive. His lungs were collapsed. He couldn’t hear. One eye had been blown out, the nerve to the other severed. In the weeks and months that followed, Castro would find that physical darkness was nothing compared to the emotional darkness of loss and despair. Desperate for a reason to live, he eventually fought his way back to health through exercise and a single-minded goal: running a marathon. Once he set his course, there was no stopping him. Stubborn to a point that at times bordered on insanity, he managed not only to recover but to return to active duty. Since 2007, he has run over two dozen marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2013, where he was one of the runners diverted when the bombs exploded. Today, Castro helps prepare soldiers for combat, working exactly as if he were “sighted.” Fighting Blind, this frankly told account of his struggle through adversity, the highs and lows and the always bumpy road in between, is a story of hope and perseverance against the odds: an Unbroken for the present generation.

Infinite Vision

Infinite Vision
Author: Pavithra K. Mehta
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2011-11-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1605099791

The Aravind Eye Care System, based in India, is the world's largest provider of high-quality eye care. It is also one of the world's most incredible and revolutionary organizations. This is the first book to explore Aravind's history and the distinctive philosophies, practices, and commitments that are the keys to its success.

Blindness

Blindness
Author: José Saramago
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 318
Release: 1999
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0156007754

A stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature. "This is a shattering work by a literary master."--The Boston Globe A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers--among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears--through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses--and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit.

Touch the Top of the World

Touch the Top of the World
Author: Erik Weihenmayer
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2002-03-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780452282940

The incredible bestselling book from the author of No Barriers and The Adversity Advantage Erik Weihenmayer was born with retinoscheses, a degenerative eye disorder that would leave him blind by the age of thirteen. But Erik was determined to rise above this devastating disability and lead a fulfilling and exciting life. In this poignant and inspiring memoir, he shares his struggle to push past the limits imposed on him by his visual impairment-and by a seeing world. He speaks movingly of the role his family played in his battle to break through the barriers of blindness: the mother who prayed for the miracle that would restore her son's sight and the father who encouraged him to strive for that distant mountaintop. And he tells the story of his dream to climb the world's Seven Summits, and how he is turning that dream into astonishing reality (something fewer than a hundred mountaineers have done). From the snow-capped summit of McKinley to the towering peaks of Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro to the ultimate challenge, Mount Everest, this is a story about daring to dream in the face of impossible odds. It is about finding the courage to reach for that ultimate summit, and transforming your life into something truly miraculous. "An inspiration to other blind people and plenty of us folks who can see just fine."—Jon Krakauer, New York Times bestselling author of Into Thin Air

Willful Blindness

Willful Blindness
Author: Margaret Heffernan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-03-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0802777953

“With deft prose and page after page of keen insights, Heffernan shows why we close our eyes to facts that threaten our families, our livelihood, and our self-image--and, even better, she points the way out of the darkness.” --Daniel H. Pink In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Margaret Heffernan's Willful Blindness is a tour de force on human behavior that will open your eyes. Why, after every major accident and blunder, do we look back and say, How could we have been so blind? Why do some people see what others don't? And how can we change? Drawing on studies by psychologists and neuroscientists, and from interviews with business leaders, whistleblowers, and white collar criminals, distinguished businesswoman and writer Margaret Heffernan examines the phenomenon of willful blindness, exploring the reasons that individuals and groups are blind to impending personal tragedies, corporate collapses, engineering failures-even crimes against humanity. We turn a blind eye in order to feel safe, to avoid conflict, to reduce anxiety, and to protect prestige. But greater understanding leads to solutions, and Heffernan shows how-by challenging our biases, encouraging debate, discouraging conformity, and not backing away from difficult or complicated problems-we can be more mindful of what's going on around us and be proactive instead of reactive.

Waking Up Blind

Waking Up Blind
Author: Thomas Harbin
Publisher: Hillcrest Publishing Group
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2009
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1934938874

Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-230).

Regarding the Pain of Others

Regarding the Pain of Others
Author: Susan Sontag
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1466853573

A brilliant, clear-eyed consideration of the visual representation of violence in our culture--its ubiquity, meanings, and effects. Considered one of the greatest critics of her generation, Susan Sontag followed up her monumental On Photography with an extended study of human violence, reflecting on a question first posed by Virginia Woolf in Three Guineas: How in your opinion are we to prevent war? "For a long time some people believed that if the horror could be made vivid enough, most people would finally take in the outrageousness, the insanity of war." One of the distinguishing features of modern life is that it supplies countless opportunities for regarding (at a distance, through the medium of photography) horrors taking place throughout the world. But are viewers inured—or incited—to violence by the depiction of cruelty? Is the viewer’s perception of reality eroded by the daily barrage of such images? What does it mean to care about the sufferings of others far away? First published more than twenty years after her now classic book On Photography, which changed how we understand the very condition of being modern, Regarding the Pain of Others challenges our thinking not only about the uses and means of images, but about how war itself is waged (and understood) in our time, the limits of sympathy, and the obligations of conscience.