Dr Dennis S. C. Lam, JP

Dr. Lam has been the Deputy of the National People’s Congress since 2008 and is a current member of the HK Legislative Council. Dr. Lam is a key leader in the field of ophthalmology in the Asia-Pacific (AP) Region and beyond. He was the President & Organizing Committee Chairman of World Ophthalmology Congress (WOC) 2008 in Hong Kong. He has been selected “Top 100 Most Influential Ophthalmologists in the World” for five consecutive terms. He was the Associate Dean (External Affairs) of the Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) from 2004-2009; and the Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, CUHK for 13 years (1998–2011). He was the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (2012-2016) and an expert of China’s ""Thousand Talents Program"".

He was the President of the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology (APAO) (2015-2017) and Asia-Pacific Vitreo-Retina Society (APVRS) (2017-2019). He serves the Academy of the Asia-Pacific Professors of Ophthalmology (AAPPO) and the Asia-Pacific Myopia Society (APMS) in the capacity of their Secretary-General. Moreover, he is a Fellow of the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis (AOI), International Council Member of the International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS) and Council Member of the World Glaucoma Association (WGA).  

Among the world’s top 100,000 scientists in 2022, 17 were Chinese ophthalmologists and Dr Lam was ranked first in clinical medicine and second in clinical medicine + biology. He is the founding and current Editor-in-Chief of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology (APJO), the official publication of the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology (APAO) and Academy of Asia-Pacific Professors of Ophthalmology (AAPPO). He established APJO in 2012 and under his leadership, the journal was SCI-indexed in 2020 and ranked 16th among the world’s leading 61 SCI eye journals in 2022. 

Dr. Lam is passionate about eliminating cataract blindness in China. Through the platform of the National People's Congress, he successfully secured the implementation of one-million free cataract surgery for poverty alleviation in China in 2009. He founded the Project Vision Charitable Foundation in 2004, a charity program with sustainable development as the local doctors are taught to perform cataract surgeries. Since 2004, 32 centers have been established in 12 provinces with over 200,000 charity cataract surgeries done and over 160 eye doctors trained to perform cataract surgery independently.