Biography
Dr Suryasnata Rath is the Network Director – Operations at LVPEI and in-charge of LVPEI@Home (Home Eye Care) service across the network. Trained as an ophthalmic plastic surgeon, Dr Rath works as faculty in the Ophthalmic Plastic Surgery, Facial Aesthetics and Ocular Oncology service at LVPEI’s Mithu Tulsi Chanrai campus in Bhubaneswar. Before assuming a network-wide responsibility, he served as the Campus Director (2018-21) and the Head of Education (2013-18) at the Bhubaneswar campus. Following his basic medical training in Odisha, Dr Rath underwent long-term fellowships at the Kallam Anji Reddy campus in Hyderabad. He joined the Bhubaneswar campus as fresh faculty recruit from its inception in July 2006, contributing to the expansion of the ophthalmic plastic service at the campus. His international training in oculoplasty with Professor Peter Dolman at the University of British Columbia, Canada, enabled him to establish a comprehensive thyroid eye clinic at the Bhubaneswar campus. Over the last decade, the thyroid eye clinic has taken significant strides in managing a large number of patients referred here for thyroid eye disease, in the volume of complex TED surgeries and developing a multi-disciplinary TED team with collaborating endocrinologists, rheumatologists, internal medicine, radiation oncologists and anaesthesiologists.
Dr Rath is on the executive board of the International Thyroid Eye Disease Society (ITEDS) and the editor of the textbook ‘Surgery in Thyroid Eye Disease: A Conceptual Approach’ by Springer. He has authored 80 indexed publications in peer-reviewed journals. As a principal investigator, he has studied the role of infections in the etiopathogenesis of ocular adnexal lymphoma, funded by the Department of Biotechnology. He delved into the realm of innovation after receiving the BIRAC BIG grant in 2017-18. Under his able leadership, LVPEI@Home – offering quality eye care at the doorstep to elderly citizens, expanded to 8 locations within LVPEI network, becoming a third arm for eye care delivery to all those who cannot reach us.
Dr Rath lives in Bhubaneswar with his wife, Swagata, an intensivist at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, and their daughter, Ira. Beyond his clinical and academic work, he has a keen interest in wildlife.