Dennis S. C. Lam

President, Hong Kong C-Mer International Eye Care Group; Honorary Director of the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (ZOC) of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China; Director of ZOC’s State Key Laboratory; Secretary-General and CEO of both the APAO and the APVRS; Editor-in-Chief, Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology

Profile

Fighting for Sight in China and Hong Kong

Graduating from the University of Hong Kong as a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1984, Dennis S. C. Lam later became Chairman of the University’s Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences; over the next decade (1998-2008), he built the department into a world-renowned eye institute. In 2012 he founded the ophthalmic medical chain group, C-MER Eye Care Holdings. C-MER has since expanded its business scope to include different specialist services, with 70 medical institutions throughout Hong Kong and mainland China, winning many accolades along the way – being named, for example, as Hong Kong’s Top Service Brand and one of Asia's Most Valuable Service Providers.

Lam is also active in politics; he has been a member of Hong Kong’s Election Committee, and has served as a congressman at the National People’s Congress of China since 2008. In 2009 he successfully campaigned for the implementation of the Advocacy for National Eye Care Initiative, aimed at reducing blindness among the underprivileged by providing one million free cataract surgeries across China.

Lam has contributed to more than 800 academic papers, edited many ophthalmology books, and holds several patents for innovative ophthalmic surgical devices and techniques. Committed to eradicating cataract blindness in Hong Kong and China, he has been heavily involved in charity work, with a focus on improving eye care in underprivileged areas. In 2004, he established Project Vision Charitable Foundation, which has trained over 160 cataract surgeons and completed over 200,000 cataract surgeries in underserved regions. The foundation’s guiding principle is “teach people to fish instead of giving them fish,” and to date, Project Vision has established 32 “poverty alleviation ophthalmic centers” in provinces throughout China.

Lam has also been involved with Lifeline Express Hong Kong Foundation, which, like Project Vision, provides free surgery and treatment to patients living in remote regions of China. His charitable efforts have not just helped thousands of patients with eye diseases – patients who otherwise would have gone untreated – they have also inspired many other ophthalmologists on their own philanthropic journeys to improve the level of eye care equity throughout the continent.

In honor of these achievements and his influence in the sphere of ophthalmology, we welcome Dennis Lam into The Power List Hall of Fame.

Awards and Honors

1995 – Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World
2011 – Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology's Best Clinical Teacher
2022 – G.O.H. Naumann Award for Leadership in Global Eye Care 
2023 – Establishment of the APVRS Dennis Lam Lecture