Lucy Mathen

Lucy Mathen
Born 1953 (age 64–65)
India
Nationality British
Occupation Ophthalmologist

Lucy Mathen (born 1953) is an Indian-born British ophthalmologist and former journalist. Having initially worked for the BBC, she retrained as a doctor and launched Second Sight – a non-profit organisation aimed at curing cataract blindness in India.

Life

Mathen began her career as a print journalist, working for the Surrey Mirror in the mid-1970s.[1] She became the British Broadcasting Corporation's first ever female British Asian to front a major national television programme in 1976 when she began working for John Craven's Newsround (the BBC's children's news series).[2] She was the programme's first dedicated reporter – others, such as the anchorman John Craven, also appeared in other presenting roles for the BBC.[3] She worked on Newsround from 1976 to 1980. During this period, Samira Ahmed, now a prominent British Asian broadcaster, found Mathen an inspiration.[2]

During the making of a documentary on women in Afghanistan in 1988, a conversation with a local doctor made her reconsider her journalistic role: "I suddenly felt like a bit of a fraud. That's when I vowed that if I were ever in a war zone again, I would be a medic and not a reporter". At the age of 36, she retrained as an ophthalmologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School.[4] After travelling to India in 1996, she saw the effects of cataracts in the poor rural north of the country and launched a non-profit organisation – Second Sight – in December 2000 to bring eye surgeons into the region.[5] In 2012 she received the inaugural Karen Woo award from the British Medical Journal for the charity's work in Bihar. In 2017 over 40,000 people had their sight restored by Second Sight working with small community eye hospitals all over the state of Bihar. The total number of blind people who have benefitted from the charity's work is now over 380,000. She has written about her change of career and the first 10 years of the charity's work in a book called A Runaway Goat: Curing Blindness in Forgotten India.[6] She is currently writing the sequel.

Mathen and her partner of 46 years, Mark, have one son and one daughter. She enjoys playing football and has incorporated the encouragement of women's football in India as part of a programme discouraging child marriage.[7] She is also a keen runner and completed three London Marathons and a half-marathon, and a triathlon raising money for Second Sight in the process.[8] She plays bass guitar in the band Startled Saint which she and Mark formed with friends in the 1970s.

References

  1. ↑ Barnes, Simon (2003-04-18). Land where folly and courage run hand in hand. The Times. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  2. 1 2 Ahmed, Samira (2011-09-30) Newsround, racism and me. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2011-10-01
  3. ↑ 30 years of Newsround. CBBC. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  4. ↑ Kallury, Kruttika (2010-10-07). Eye catcher. India Today. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  5. ↑ Organisation. Second Sight. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  6. ↑ Excess Baggage: Medics abroad and Bridges. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  7. ↑ Carter, Sally (2011-04-01). Lucy Mathen: From journalism to ophthalmology. British Medical Journal. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  8. ↑ Marathons. Second Sight.
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