Sadeer B. Hannush, MD

Sadeer B. Hannush M.D. is Attending Surgeon on the Cornea Service at Wills Eye Hospital and Professor of Ophthalmology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and completed his Ophthalmology Residency at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. He then went on to fellowship training in Cornea, External Disease and Refractive Surgery at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, under the mentorship of George Waring III MD and Doyle Stulting MD PhD.

Dr. Hannush’s areas of interest are full and partial thickness corneal transplantation (endothelial and deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty), permanent keratoprosthesis surgery (artificial cornea), complex cataract and anterior segment reconstructive procedures, and laser vision correction. He lectures nationally and internationally on these topics (including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom). He has more than a hundred publications in the peer-reviewed and other literature, and more than twenty chapters in ophthalmology texts. He has also participated in several clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hannush has given nine named/medal lectures and more than thirty Visiting Professorships.

Dr. Hannush is a Fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (35 years), Diplomate of the American Board of Ophthalmology, and a Member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (35 years), the American Medical Association, the Cornea Society (where he served as Program Chair for four years), the Ocular Microbiology and Immunology Group, the International Society of Refractive Surgeons of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, the European Society of Corneal and Ocular Surface Specialists, and the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons.

Dr. Hannush is the Medical Director of the Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley and an Advisory Board Member of the Eye Bank Association of America. He is a longstanding member of the Ophthalmic Drug Panel and a consultant to the Ophthalmic Devices Panel of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Washington D.C. In 1995 he served on the FDA panel that approved the excimer laser and two liquid fluorocarbons.

For the past twenty-eight years Dr. Hannush has been chosen to teach at the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, the European Society of Corneal and Ocular Surface Surgeons, and the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons annual meetings on the subjects of corneal transplantation, keratoprosthesis surgery, intraocular lens management and laser vision correction involving top national and international experts in these fields. Most of these courses describe pioneering surgical techniques that have been adopted throughout the world.

Dr. Hannush has performed and taught corneal transplantation in Italy, Spain, Egypt and Kenya. He started a corneal transplantation program at Tenwek Mission Hospital in Western Kenya. He was one of the originators of W.I.R.E. (Wills International Resident Experience), during which the Wills Eye Hospital senior residents spend time abroad experiencing the delivery of ophthalmic care in a third world setting.

Dr. Hannush has been named in ‘The Best Doctors in Philadelphia’ as well as ‘The Best Doctors in The United States’. The Wills Eye Hospital residents presented him with the Excellence in Teaching Award. He received the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Honor Award for distinguished service in education and the Senior Achievement Award. In 2019 the American Academy of Ophthalmology is awarding him the Life Achievement Award.