A Tireless Humanitarian

The work we do improves the life of the patient. We gain new friends; we always learn from other cultures. It keeps me humble and happy to know I’m helping to make a difference.

—ALAN S. CRANDALL, MD

The founder and senior medical director of Moran’s Global Outreach Division, Crandall began his now-legendary outreach work in Kumasi, Ghana, more than two decades ago. He traveled there in response to a request from a longtime patient who had family ties in that region. She told Crandall about the lack of ophthalmologists and the dire need for eye care, including curable blindness from cataracts, and asked him to do what he could to help. True to his nature, he said, “OK, let’s do it.”

“Alan has dedicated his career to humanitarian service, and his loving, generous spirit permeates all that he does,” said renowned cataract surgeon and American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) Foundation Co-Chair David Chang, MD, in awarding Crandall the inaugural ASCRS Foundation Chang Humanitarian Award.

“The list of places where Dr. Crandall has given his time and skill is long and varied, including Ghana, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nepal, India, China, Guatemala, Tonga, Haiti, Micronesia, and Cuba, as well as regular service on the Navajo Nation,” said Chang. “The nature of these outreach efforts is as impressive as the list itself.”

David Chang, MD, left, and Alan S. Crandall, MD, at the ASCRS Foundation Chang Humanitarian Award ceremony.

The stories of Crandall working in makeshift operating rooms around the world, often in searing temperatures, and sometimes amid an array of tropical “visitors” in the form of bugs and bats, are seemingly endless and occasionally harrowing.

Whatever the story, common threads emerge. Colleagues talk about his phenomenal stamina and enthusiasm. They recount how he always logged the highest number of procedures, hardly pausing, and never saying “no” to any challenge—whether it was continuing long past quitting time or dancing through the night. And all this despite screws in his neck, which he broke twice—the first time while skiing. The second came on a bumpy bus ride in Ghana when a 40-pound phaco machine dislodged from the luggage rack and hit the back of his neck. Later, he acquired two artificial knees and an artificial hip.

Alan and his wife Julie Crandall often volunteered together on international outreach trips.

Though he was humble, Crandall wasn’t above the “humblebrag,” but always with a smile.

He was also known for his bolo ties, which he started wearing when he figured out he was “not the bow-tie type” while on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s.

Crandall was the only person to receive four internationally recognized awards in ophthalmology for his outreach work: the American Glaucoma Society Humanitarian Award, the American Academy of Ophthalmology Humanitarian Award, the ASCRS Humanitarian Award, and the inaugural ASCRS Foundation Chang Humanitarian Award.

“Alan Crandall was not only a world-famous cataract and glaucoma surgeon but a great humanitarian,” said R. Venketesh, chief medical officer of Aravind Eye Hospital in Pondicherry, India. “He is truly an inspirational human and physician. For many of us at Aravind, he was a great friend, philosopher, and guide. He strongly believed that training doctors in resource-poor countries is the main solution for eradicating needless blindness.”

In his too short, but amazingly full life, Alan held so many of our hands, brought joy to our journeys through life and helped us reach where we needed to go.

—Geoff Tabin, MD, co-founder, Himalayan Cataract Project

Despite his celebrity status, Alan was approachable by all. He was warm, kind, selfless, and a man of total integrity.

— Robert Osher, MD, director emeritus of the Cincinnati Eye Institute

I had the honor of being Alan’s friend and a partner in his plan to change the world. He was my true north. I feel a bit lost, like all of us. But I still hear him when I operate or push myself to be brave, and he is telling me to keep walking. Like most corneas, this fog is going to clear.

—Susan MacDonald, MD, associate clinical professor, Tufts University School of Medicine; president, EyeCorps