Education
Dr. M. Scott Hickman was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas and has been practicing ophthalmology since 2005. He graduated from Lawrence High School, and attended the University of Kansas for his undergraduate degree. After college, he spent two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania, West Africa in disease control and water sanitation. He attended the University of Hawaii School of Medicine and the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York City for his internship. He received his ophthalmology training at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Private Practice and Teaching
After obtaining board certification, Dr. Hickman became more involved in volunteer ophthalmology in the developing world and in 2016 to 2021 became the medical director of SEE International based out of Santa Barbara, California, a charity providing eye care throughout the world (https://www.seeintl.org/). From 2016 to 2017, he studied Public Health for Eye Care at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor (Volunteer), Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center since 2019.
He has authored many medical textbook chapters and research articles, and has taught cataract surgery in Africa and at the Royal College of Ophthalmologists in London, England. In the United States, he has worked to begin the Vision 2020 Links program to the United States in collaboration with the International Center for Eye Health (ICEH), a program that links ophthalmic training programs in the United States to the developing world (http://iceh.lshtm.ac.uk/vision-2020-links-programme/).
Personal
Dr. Hickman is married with three children and enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking, camping and riding bikes. He is a slow but proud finisher of the Dirty Kanza 200 and the New York City Marathon.
Expedition and Volunteer Work
Dr. Hickman has been volunteering in eye care both at home and internationally since he was a resident. He has taken part in health fairs and has donated care in Kansas for various at-need populations both in Lawrence and Kansas City. Internationally, he has worked as an ophthalmic surgeon in Haiti, Ghana, the Congo, Kenya, India and the Dominican Republic.