Elena Barraquer, MD, selected as recipient of ASCRS Foundation Chang-Crandall Humanitarian Award
The ASCRS Foundation Board proudly announces its selection of Elena Barraquer, MD, for the 2025 Chang-Crandall Humanitarian Award.
Endowed by a generous gift from David and Victoria Chang, the ASCRS Foundation Chang-Crandall Humanitarian Award was established in 2017 to honor and recognize outstanding humanitarian work in the field of cataract blindness and disability. The $100,000 award is donated to the awardee’s non-profit organization of choice. Dr. Barraquer has earmarked the financial prize for the Elena Barraquer Foundation.
For many years, Dr. Barraquer has led the Elena Barraquer Foundation, a nonprofit organization which fights avoidable blindness due to cataract in developing countries. The foundation leads short-term surgical missions around the world to perform sight-restoring cataract surgery, taking all surgical equipment and supplies needed to perform the surgery. Over the last 6 years, the Elena Barraquer Foundation has provided access to eye health to over 120,000 people in more than 20 countries. Additionally, the Elena Barraquer Foundation has performed 25,000 pro bono cataract surgeries, over 50,000 medical consultations, and delivered more than 65,000 glasses.
Dr. Barraquer’s interest in ophthalmology and humanitarian eyecare started from an early age, as she has a rich family history with ophthalmology and the Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre. Her grandparents lived in the building where the clinic was, and her parents did as well. “My brother, my sister, and I lived inside an eye clinic,” she said. “I was seeing every day how my father and my grandfather enjoyed the work, enjoyed the profession, taking care of people, you know. They were always talking about interesting cases. So, since I was 6 or 7 years old, I thought, well, this sounds like a great job. Everyone is happy. I'm going to do the same thing.”
Not only did ophthalmology run in her family, but so did a history of charitable work. “My grandfather, when he built the clinic, he also had a charity section because when he built the clinic, he was working at a private clinic that he owned, and also at a public hospital. So, when he built the actual clinic that was finished in 1941, he didn't want any of his patients to be left out. He decided that one side of the clinic was going to be for paying people and another side for non-paying people.” After her grandfather’s death, Dr. Barraquer said the clinic continued to offer charitable surgery and prices for those who couldn’t afford ophthalmic care. “That’s the philosophy that I grew up with,” she said.
In addition to her experience in Spain with her family’s legacy and clinic, Dr. Barraquer said her first job was in the U.S. at the National Eye Institute of the NIH, doing research. And it was through this job that she ended up on her first ophthalmic mission trip in 1979. “When I was there, a team from the clinical part of the National Eye Institute was going to do a mission in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, and they asked me,” she said. “For me, it was amazing, and I think that that was the seed of what I'm doing now. My grandfather's work and that trip that we took to Port-au-Prince.”
She saw many situations that didn’t need to exist and patients in need, which she noted often happens in countries where they don't have the technological resources, the human resources, and monetary resources to afford healthcare that patients need.
Following her work at the NIH, when she took her first humanitarian trip to Haiti, she worked at Wilmer Institute for 2 years doing eye pathology. She completed her residency at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston, followed by a cornea fellowship at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami. “After that, I married an Italian ophthalmologist, and I was in Italy for 13 years,” she said. “I saw how ophthalmology is done in what are considered [some of] the best hospitals in the U.S.” With that and then moving on to practice in Italy, Dr. Barraquer said this helped her a lot when she came back to Barcelona in 2002. Dr. Barraquer said she brought interesting insights from training and learning in other countries that could help show different ways to do things.
Today, Dr. Barraquer runs the Elena Barraquer Foundation. But she added that she previously was involved with humanitarian work with the Barraquer Foundation, which was started in 2003 by her father.
In 2004, Dr. Barraquer did her first trip to Africa through the original Barraquer Foundation, traveling to Senegal, where she saw the great need. For 13 years, from 2004 to 2017, Dr. Barraquer was the executive director of the Barraquer Foundation. When her father died at the end of 2016, she took over the patronage of the Barraquer Foundation. It was also decided at this time that this foundation would focus more on work in Spain and the backlog of procedures in the country.
“I knew, because I was the one that had been traveling for those 30 years, that our needs in Africa are a thousand times more,” Dr. Barraquer said. For example, she said, in countries like Mozambique, there are 20 million people and only 20 ophthalmologists. And there’s no way to address this problem. “Not only don't they have the technology or the economic resources, but they don't have the human resources,” she said. “So, I decided then to start [a new foundation] – the Elena Barraquer Foundation – to exclusively do these trips to developing countries or underdeveloped countries to help wherever they need us.”
The first trip for the Elena Barraquer Foundation was to Kenya in 2017. “We went to Kenya, hand in hand with another NGO from Barcelona with whom we had traveled to Kenya six times before with the Barraquer Foundation,” she said. “We have done over 25,000 cataracts since then.”
When the Elena Barraquer Foundation started in 2017, Dr. Barraquer said it comprised of only herself, Teté Ferreiro (executive director of the Elena Barraquer Foundation), and a scrub nurse. This expanded from just three people, and Dr. Barraquer said there are now 10 people in Barcelona who work every day just preparing the campaigns and outreach. Dr. Barraquer continues to work both with the Elena Barraquer Foundation and with the Barraquer Institute. Last year, the Elena Barraquer Foundation completed 18 humanitarian trips, with cataract surgery as the main focus.
During her trips, Dr. Barraquer said there have been many memorable experiences. One was a trip to Kenya in the Samburu region in the north of the country. The Samburus are a nomad tribe, Dr. Barraquer said, so they move around, and they walk everywhere. She treated a 33-year-old Samburu man. “He came with a typical warrior dress, and he was very drunk. He was blind from both eyes. He had such an incredible cataract that he only saw light perception with both eyes,” she said. “I did one eye. One of them was actually subluxated, so I had to do an intracapsular … that was the only way.” The following day, he came to have the patch removed, and Dr. Barraquer did the surgery on the other eye. When he returned the day after to have the second eye patch off, he could see with the first eye operated. “He said to me, ‘Thank you. Now I'm going to be able to find a job.’ And it was incredible.”
Dr. Barraquer said this case really put it into perspective the importance of why she does this work. You think about leaving your practice for a week to come do this, she said, but then you’re able to not only give someone their sight back, but also give them back their life. “Who wouldn't give a week of their life to help another human being.”
It's these memories and cases that keep you coming back, Dr. Barraquer said. “When you have been working 10 or 12 or 14 hours, you are tired. If you think of those memories, the fatigue goes away. That’s why we do it.”
“Please join me in honoring Dr. Elena Barraquer, a woman who is a brilliant surgeon, a remarkable humanitarian, and a spectacular role model,” said Susan MacDonald, MD, ASCRS Foundation Chair. “[With] her unwavering focus on delivering quality eyecare to underserved communities through her compassion and expertise, she inspires all of us to join the mission of reducing needless blindness.”
“It is truly a privilege to recognize Elena Barraquer as this year’s recipient of the Chang-Crandall humanitarian award,” said Lisa Park, MD, chair of the award’s nominating committee. “Born in Barcelona to a family with generational history in ophthalmology … the committee was impressed with the years she dedicated to training and research in the U.S. and humanitarian efforts around the world from an early age. When the family foundation decided to focus its attention on research and training rather than charitable surgery in Africa, Elena founded the Fundación Elena Barraquer in 2017 to continue these humanitarian efforts. In doing so, not only has she transformed the lives of thousands of patients, but she became a mentor, role model, and an inspiration for many young surgeons. I would like to highlight that Elena was one of the few women in this illustrious group for this award and received the top number of votes from our committee by a large margin. It is my great pleasure to acknowledge and recognize this physician whose work has gone beyond the call of duty and embodies the true spirit of this award.”
Dr. Barraquer and her team on a trip to Dakar, Senegal in 2022.
Source: Fundación Elena Barraquer
Dr. Barraquer and her team on a trip to Dakar, Senegal in 2022.
Source: Fundación Elena Barraquer
Dr. Barraquer with a patient in Kenya in 2017.
Source: Fundación Elena Barraquer
Dr. Barraquer examines a patient while on a trip to Angola in 2018.
Source: Fundación Elena Barraquer
Dr. Barraquer with two patients in Senegal in 2019 after their cataract surgeries.
Source: Fundación Elena Barraquer