MONTICELLO — Dr. Charles Yancey, a local ophthalmology specialist who has practiced here in Monticello for 30 years, has an eye for doing good in the world.
Yancey, one of the doctors at West Metro Ophthalmology, which has clinics locally on Cedar Street in Monticello and in Buffalo, along with offices in Golden Valley and Plymouth, was recently honored with a humanitarian award from the Minnesota Academy of Ophthalmology, recognizing his extensive volunteer work both locally and abroad.
“I am humbled to have been chosen for this award from my fellow ophthalmologists, but also want to acknowledge that it was a team effort with help from many other people and entities, like both Buffalo and Monticello hospitals as well as West Metro Eye,” Yancey said.
The George T. Tani Humanitarian Award is presented to those who demonstrate a pattern of humanitarian service involving charitable activities, indigent care and community service.
Yancey received the 2024 honor in May, recognizing his efforts in establishing an eye clinic in central Tanzania, along with his other volunteer work, which runs from local efforts at hospitals here in Wright County to multiple trips to impoverished Haiti, where he has performed surgery and taught doctors there how to treat basic eye diseases.
His most recent overseas volunteer work brought him to East Africa, where he helped to establish an eye clinic at the Dodoma Christian Medical Center (DCMC) in Central Tanzania.
The Dodoma CMC Eye Clinic opened in 2017, Yancey said, following two years of efforts to get it off the ground.
He started in 2015, by raising funds through grants and donations, while collecting donated eye equipment in the U.S., organizing and shipping needed supplies through the complex national customs system, reassembling equipment once it arrived in Dodoma, then setting up the clinic and operating room.
The DCMC Eye Clinic is now the only comprehensive eye care facility in a region of 2.3 million individuals. It serves more than 4,300 patients a year, regardless of their ability to pay; performs eye surgeries; treats a variety of eye diseases; hosts outreach vision screening events in rural villages; and now has a fully operational optical lab to make prescription glasses on site.
Last year, Dr. Yancey’s team screened 1,500 children and 200 adults in just one week.
The lack of available eye care in Tanzania had much to do with the dearth of ophthalmologists there — with just 48 in the entire country.
Not to be deterred, Dr. Yancey organized surgical training and mentorship programs for physicians in Tanzania interested in eye care, bringing a team of U.S. doctors and other medical professional volunteers with him to Africa, where they used their expertise and skills to facilitate and teach DCMC doctors and nurses, while also providing direct patient care at the clinic.
A visionary, guided by his underlying philosophy to “do right by patients,” one of Yancey’s greatest joys and rewards is to see that this new clinic provides sustainable eye health to Tanzanians for years to come.
A man of faith who speaks fluent French, with a sly sense of humor and a dedication and compassion for helping those in need, Yancey is described as caring, resourceful and determined, with a genuine interest in the well-being of others.
Yancey grew up in Libertyville, Ill., a small town north of Chicago. The youngest of seven children, he attended Northwestern University with the help of a scholarship. It was there that he met his future wife, a Minnesotan, who wanted to return to the land of 10,000 lakes to raise a family.
After graduating from medical school, the pair started their ascent north to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where Yancey did his ophthalmology residency. He started practicing in the Twin Cities in 1993, and established his practices in Monticello and Buffalo in 1994.
He was very involved in the growth of Buffalo Hospital, acting as chief of surgery and as chief of the medical staff in the past. More recently, he served on the operating committee of CentraCare Health Monticello.
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