ESCRS Winter Meeting: Prestigious Award for Burkhard Dick

The German ophthalmic surgeon Burkhard Dick, Chair of Ophthalmology at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) and Secretary of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ESCRS) has been awarded the prestigious Science Prize of its German partner society, the DGII, during a joint meeting in Frankfurt. The Science Prize, supported by Hoya, honors innovators and surgeons who have contributed to progress in ophthalmology to an extraordinary degree.

During the joint congress of the DGII (German Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery) and the ESCRS Winter Meeting, the ceremony to honor Dick's many scientific and clinical achievements was regarded as one of the meeting's highlight by many participants. DGII President Christopher Wirbelauer (Berlin) emphasized Burkhard Dick's numerous achievements which have benefited eye care specialist worldwide - and, even more, their patients. Dick is widely regarded as an international pioneer of femtosecond laser cataract surgery (usually abbreviated as FLACS, femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery, or LCS, laser cataract surgery). He is the author or co-author of more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and the author/editor of a number of leading textbooks like the trailblazing "Femtosecond Laser Surgery in Ophthalmology" and most recently "Cataract Surgery - Advanced Techniques for Complex and Complicated Case". Dick has chaired the DGII as President for four years and has last year been elected as Secretary of the ESCRS. Beyond cataract surgery, Dick's contributions to other fields of eye surgery are highly regarded like the numerous published results of the Bochum Clinic on different techniques of minimally-invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS). Dick holds the chair of ophthalmology at the Ruhr University Bochum since 2006.

The Hoya Science Prize is one of the most renowned of the many awards that Dick has received for his immense scientific output like the IIIC Gold Medal. The prize comes with an amount of 5,000 Euro - which Dick, after thanking the audience and the prize committee for the honor, announced immediately he will donate to "Doctors without Frontiers".