Dr Mark Loane AM | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

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Dr Mark Loane AM

Honorary Doctorate (April 2012)

Dr Mark Loane AM was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in April 2012 in recognition of his distinguished and sustained contribution to ophthalmology, and sustainable health services for remote communities.

Dr Mark Loane AM is a prominent ophthalmologist specialising in glaucoma and cataract surgery at the Vision Eye Institute in Brisbane. Another area where Mark’s leadership is well known is in his demonstrated athletic excellence in international rugby, playing 29 tests for the Wallabies, as Captain of the Wallabies, and as an official ambassador for the Wallabies. Dr Loane graduated in medicine in 1978 from the University of Queensland and completed ophthalmology in 1986. Dr Loane undertook a fellowship in Corneal Transplantation and External Eye Disease at Flinders Medical Centre in South Australia and a fellowship in Glaucoma at the University of California, San Diego. He has a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree (MBBS) and is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Dr Loane was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2011 for services to medicine in the field of ophthalmology, and is highly regarded and well known for his work with remote and Indigenous people. In the early nineties, Dr Loane joined the Queensland Trachoma and Eye Health Project touring remote communities throughout the state. This led to the development of the innovative Cape York Eye Health Project that he developed to deliver eye health services to remote communities in the Cape York Peninsula. The system increases the effectiveness and efficiencies that enable more care to be provided to more patients with little increase in resource costs. Dr Loane is a Board Member of The Eye Foundation Nationally and Guide Dogs Queensland. He was also the Chairman of the Indigenous and Remote Eye Health Service (IRIS) designed to facilitate the delivery of co-ordinated eye health services throughout rural and remote indigenous Australia.