Live In Your Soul: 10 Insights from a Visionary

When a crippling disease shattered his lifelong ambition Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy chose an impossible new dream: to eliminate needless blindness. By 1976 Dr. V (as he came to be known) had performed over 100,000 sight restoring surgeries. That same year, he retired from government service at the age of 58, and founded Aravind, an 11-bed eye clinic in south India. No money. No business plan. No safety net. Over the next four decades his humble clinic would defy the odds to become the largest provider of eye care on the planet. If you can't come to them, they will come to you. If you can't pay them, you don't have to. Aravind has now treated over 55 million patients and performed over 6.8 million sight restoring surgeries. The majority are treated free or at steeply subsidized rates. And yet, Aravind is a self-sustaining organization. Serving everyone from penniless farmers to the president, it delivers world-class outcomes at a hundredth of what similar services cost providers in advanced nations. Dr.V passed away in 2006 but his vision lives on in the work of his organization. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth, here are 10 insights from his remarkable life...

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