Christian Ophthalmology Society

12/20/2025

The COS Board and Staff joins you this Christmas season in remembering the coming of Jesus Christ into this world to be with us. He is our Savior and Lord, who will reign for ever and ever! Hallelujah!!!

Thank you for your support of the Society!

May we continue to:
Develop friendship among ophthalmologists in Christ throughout the world.
Support the faith of all medical physicians in Christ.
Promote unity and Christ-centered fellowship.
Cooperate with, pray for, and financially support missionary ophthalmologists as a society.

Further, by study and teaching, the knowledge of diseases of the eye and to use our knowledge to prevent and treat eye diseases.
Provide a setting in which like-minded ophthalmologists can network, share ideas, encourage, and support one another, and fellowship together.

"Sharing Christ’s Light Through Caring for Sight”.

May you know the love of Jesus Christ this Christmas!

For the entire COS Board & Staff,

The COS Executive Board,
Jean Hausheer, M.D.
Dan Gold, M.D.
Jeff Taylor, M.D.
Max Su, M.D.

12/13/2025

Do you ever look back at your day, your week, or even your month and wonder if any of it really makes a difference? So much of life is filled with the mundane — school runs, grocery shopping, work meetings, fixing things around the house.

For Dr. John and Jessica Cropsey, the missionaries sponsored by the COS Foster a Missionary (FAM) program, their life in Kigali, Rwanda, has plenty of that too.

Read what they say in their latest update...

"But every once in a while, God gives us a moment that breaks through the ordinary and reminds us that He is at work in ways we can’t always see.

A few weeks ago, the Eye Love Africa team in Burundi met a woman named Anésie, 59 years old. For three long years she had lived in darkness due to cataracts. When she arrived, her whole body trembled from Parkinsonism — her hands, her head, everything shaking uncontrollably. She was so afraid that her condition might keep her from receiving help. And yet, even in her trembling, she prayed nonstop under her breath:

'Oh my God, have mercy on me… give me favor… help them welcome me… You know how I suffer… have mercy on me…'

During her surgery, when the shaking made it difficult, she quietly pleaded, 'Please… hold my head still… I believe I will be healed.'

She wasn’t just a patient — she was a living prayer. A fragile body carrying an unshakable faith. Stories like hers help us pause, rejoice, and remember that God is still moving in the midst of the mundane. The long hours pouring into a developing surgeon, the tedious expense reports, the complex logistics behind an outreach — these ordinary tasks quietly build the foundation for the extraordinary stories God is writing.

Anésie's story is more than restored sight.
It's a quiet, undeniable miracle —
a holy reminder of when the everyday becomes sacred."

For the Cropseys, this past season has been full of those quiet, faithful steps that add up to something meaningful. John spent several weeks in the USA connecting with supporters and attending conferences — lots of flights, conversations, and logistics. Yet woven through all of that were moments where God clearly used those connections for kingdom purposes.

John and Jessica thank us for praying, supporting, and showing up — even in our own routine, everyday life. Our faithfulness matters. Sometimes the results are obvious, and sometimes they’re hidden. But God is always at work in the background, weaving the ordinary into something beautiful.

If you want to read the Cropsey's full update, you can access it here: https://cosw.org/support-the-cos/.

Consider giving to their ministry. All year-end gifts will be matched up to $100,000.

We’re grateful to be in this work together.

The Cropseys and the COS Board and Staff

11/26/2025

The Thanksgiving holiday is a unique national holiday. There is very little commercialism or hype attached to it. Just an invitation to set aside time to remember the gifts given to us by our Father in Heaven.

We probably don’t often read Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation, written in the middle of the Civil War, but the paragraph below is worth reading every year. Not only does he recommend that we offer thanksgiving and praise, but also repentance for our “national perverseness and disobedience,” and to remember those who have lost family and are suffering. Amazing! He shows humility, compassion, and strength…

"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union."

We want to take time to say thanks to you, the members and friends of the Christian Ophthalmology Society. Your active participation and gifts make it possible for us to do what we do. You are a source of encouragement throughout the year to help us keep Christ at the heart of ophthalmology. You also enable us to bring member missionaries and residents to our meeting so we can mentor and grow the next generation of ophthalmologists to love and serve Christ in all areas of life.

Thank you. May we continue to share Christ’s light through caring for sight.

The COS Board and Staff.

11/19/2025

08/07/2025

“Biblical Orality: the Power of a Story” Ben Roberts, MD

In this powerful and practical talk, Dr. Ben Roberts shares the transformative value of Biblical Orality—telling God’s Word through stories. Drawing from his...

08/03/2025

https://youtu.be/XjB_6ncTYM0

🎥 Vision Loss or Migraine? It Was a Brain Abscess | Case Report by Texas A&M Medical Student Paul OanceaThis eye-opening case presentation by Paul Oancea te...

08/02/2025

What Happens When Eye Drops Don't Work?

📹 When Drops Fail: A Case of Fungal Keratitis That Required Urgent Corneal Transplant SurgeryMike Jennings, a 4th-year medical student from the University o...

08/02/2025

Congratulations to Dr. Ben Roberts, recipient of the 2025 J. Lawton Smith Award!

08/01/2025

COS 2025 Vendor Highlight Part 2:

COS Website: https://cosw.org/Follow the COS on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristianOphthalmologyDISCLAIMER Our videos are intended for educational p...

08/01/2025

https://youtu.be/n3fBtgljwcU

We asked vendors to share about their organizations and an eye joke or pun.NO MEDICAL ADVICE IS GIVEN. My videos are for educational purposes. My videos may ...

07/27/2025

Next week is the 49th COS Annual Meeting. If you are going to be in Denver, we pray that God will move in a powerful way to point us to Jesus, and our time together will be a time to remember the glory of God, and the work of his hands (Psalm 19:1).

The Annual Meeting is always a fantastic opportunity to make a lasting connection with like-minded Ophthalmologists! Specifically, a mentor-mentee connection.

In the past, we have shared a snippet from an article about mentoring, and we believe it is worth sharing again to encourage you to consider reaching out to someone who is looking for a mentor or a mentee.

William Reichart, from the CMDA, asks a haunting question:
"Mentoring is such a valuable time for both those who mentor and those who are mentored, why does there seem to be a lack of it?"

There are numerous reasons we can give. He lists three specific hurdles that prevent us from considering a mentor relationship…We have added a fourth that is COS-specific.

Time. Ophthalmologists are busy. Our busyness often robs us of those things that are most important and scream for our time and attention. It’s the old adage, we allow the "tyranny of the urgent" to rob us of the things that are important.

Perfection. Ophthalmologists are perfectionists. Most patients are probably glad we are. However, when it comes to mentoring relationships, we don’t need to have it all together and be the Bible answer person in order to mentor. What we will probably discover is that mentoring is an opportunity to let Christ work through us. Christ knows the needs of the mentee….you don’t have to be perfect. The most important thing is to be available. To just show up.

Ignorance. We don’t have a clear picture of what mentoring should look like. Being unclear and uncertain of what mentoring looks like paralyzes us from venturing into the unknown. It’s okay if we can’t see much past the first step. That is what faith is all about.

Distance. When asked to participate in the COS Glen Brindley Mentoring Program, often times the Mentor-Mentee relationship is long distance. How is this long-distance relationship going to work? In this day and age of so many connectivity options, you can find a way to get to know each other that works for both of you.

Developing a mentoring relationship doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does require you to put yourself out there…take the chance! It could be the greatest inheritance you can give.

A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.
- Proverbs 1:5

07/05/2025

Every year the Christian Ophthalmology Society hands out an award to an ophthalmologist who has shown a lifetime commitment to serving the Lord through their personal practice of excellence in medicine, academic influence, and/or missionary dedication. It’s named after the founder and first president of the COS, J Lawton Smith, because his life reflected those qualities.

Have you ever wondered who influenced J Lawton in his walk with Jesus?

J Lawton Smith used to talk a lot about Dr. Jack Cooper. He and Jack were co-residents at Wilmer Eye Institute. They apparently did a lot of “partying” as nominal Christians who had not really developed their personal relationship with Christ. After residency in 1962, they went their separate ways and then in the fall J Lawton ran into Jack at the AAO. He noted that Jack was very, very different.

J Lawton asked Jack what was different about him. Jack told him that he was "born again" and that he was completely changed. J Lawton reported with much charisma what Jack had reported to him at that Academy meeting that it “ate into his brain like a rat.”

Because of his friend Jack and this totally dramatic transformation J Lawton had experienced, he got on his knees before the Lord and rededicated his life to Christ in the fall of 1962 after the AAO meeting. He reported that he had never experienced such a transformational story as he saw in Jack Cooper.

Dr. Cooper’s legacy is impressive. Jack believed in treating the “total person” and caring for the soul by sharing Christian faith and caring for the body by practicing medicine. He did this in his daily practice and in developing nations across the world. His motto was to "preach, teach and heal in Jesus' name".