by Ming Wang
“Dr. Wang is not only a dear friend and the very best eye surgeon; he is also one of the greatest people I have ever known.”
—Dolly Parton
“To try to put my feelings about Dr. Wang, his accomplishments, his courage, his iron will and his faith into a couple of sentences would be tantamount to packing a Mack truck into a burlap bag. This remarkable man overcame all but impossible odds to become the best in his field, and this world is a better place for having Dr. Ming Wang pass through it.”
—Charlie Daniels
“I have known Dr. Wang for nearly two decades; he is a respected eye surgeon and friend. What Ming has done with his life since arriving here in the United States as a penniless student over 30 years ago exemplifies the true essence of the American dream, and the freedom that we enjoy in this great country. I highly recommend his autobiography, From Darkness to Sight.”
—Senator William H. Frist, MD, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader
“If I didn’t know Ming, it would be hard to believe the story of his life. But I do know him, and his life truly is a remarkable story of faith, persistence, and excellence.”
—Bill Haslam, Governor of the State of Tennessee
“To try to put my feelings about Dr. Wang, his accomplishments, his courage, his iron will and his faith into a couple of sentences would be tantamount to packing a Mack truck into a burlap bag. This remarkable man overcame all but impossible odds to become the best in his field, and this world is a better place for having Dr. Ming Wang pass through it.”
—Charlie Daniels
“Ming Wang is well known for the eye surgeries he’s performed to give countless people better sight. And it’s hard to forget that he’s also a ballroom dancer, once you’ve seen one of his ads on TV. But what many people don’t know is that Dr. Wang also gives very generously of his time and talents so that blind children in other countries can regain their sight. What better gift can you give someone? Nashville is lucky to be able to count Dr. Wang as one of our own.”
—Karl Dean, Mayor, Nashville
“My deeply respected friend, Dr. Ming Wang, has topped the heights of human achievement. Through his personal and professional triumphs, Ming has captured the essence of what it means to be free and to be a loving humanitarian. The story of his unique life, as only he can tell it, will be a blessing and an inspiration to all who come to know it.”
—Dr. Winfield Dunn, former Governor of Tennessee
“From Darkness to Sight is an inspiring story that shows how hard work, optimism, and faith can not only lead to personal success, but also make our country stronger. Dr. Ming Wang’s journey from dark days in Communist China to his career in the United States as a physician and philanthropist is a testament to the possibilities of the American Dream.”
—Senator Lamar Alexander
“The story of Ming Wang’s journey from the severe hardships of the cultural revolution in China to becoming one of the most accomplished doctors in the U.S. will make you a believer that all things are possible.”
—Dr. Rice Broocks, Senior Minister of Bethel World Outreach Church in Nashville, co-founder of Every Nation Ministries, best-selling author of God’s Not Dead
“Dr. Wang performed LASIK eye surgery on me in 2000 and we have been friends ever since. It has been a pleasure to serve on his Wang Foundation Board, and to witness the generous application of his talents and skills giving the gift of sight. Ming Wang’s life story is unique and inspirational, as is he. I am indeed thrilled that he has shared it in his new book!”
—Shirley Zeitlin, Owner, Shirley Zeitlin & Company
“I have known Dr. Ming Wang for many years. He is a highly respected eye surgeon, writer, award-winning ballroom dancer, philanthropist, and dear friend. Dr. Wang is the epitome of the Renaissance Man. His skill as an eye surgeon is legendary, his empathy, and concern for patients worldwide is noteworthy, and his Christian faith guides and drives him!”
—Colleen Conway Welch, PhD, CNM, FAAN, FACNM, Nancy & Hilliard Travis, Professor of Nursing, Dean Emerita, Vanderbilt School of Nursing
“It was a great pleasure having Dr. Wang work in my laboratory while he was a student at Harvard Medical-school. He managed to explore cutting-edge science and publish in the top journal, Nature, while excelling in his clinical duties and other pursuits. He has continued this path of technology development in laser applications in eye surgery ever since then and his new book captures a truly touching and amazing story of a multifaceted life.”
—George Church, PhD, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
“From Darkness to Sight is a roller coaster of emotions! Once I picked up the book I couldn’t put it down, each page dripping with humanity in the face of life’s most difficult circumstances. This is a story of tenacity and determination, an odyssey of searching through great darkness to find a sliver of light that would ultimately become a wave of grace and mercy. Dr. Wang writes, ‘Over the years of my life, I had learned again and again that it was often in these especially difficult situations, where human capability seems to have reached its limit, that we really have the chance to encounter God’s true power.’ And isn’t that the story of all of our lives? We struggle for meaning and understanding amidst the highs and lows that we share with our loved ones, with our colleagues, with our God. We reach to discover our purpose in this world. Dr. Wang’s journey is one of self-discovery crowned with the humility to reach out beyond himself to find true peace and freedom. I would highly recommend this book to everyone. And as an executive producer in feature film and television, I look forward to seeing From Darkness to Sight come alive on the silver screen!”
—David Fischer, JD, Chief Financial Officer, Kingston Road Pictures
From Darkness to Sight
From Darkness to Sight
A Journey from Hardship to Healing
Ming Wang, MD, PhD
From Darkness to Sight
© 2016 Dr. Ming Wang
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, or otherwise—without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. For information on licensing or special sales, please email Dunham Books at [email protected].
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-939447-95-1
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-939447-913
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-939447-920
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015940520
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To my father, Dr. Zhen-sheng Wang, my mother, Dr. A-lian Xu, my brother, Dr. Ming-yu Wang, my wife, Anle Wang, my son, Dennis Wang and my godparents, Misha Bartnovsky and June Rudolph, and my entire family, as well as my teachers, mentors, colleagues, and friends.
To my patients, with whom I have shared the journey from darkness to sight.
To China, my birth country, which shaped my character.
To America, my adopted country, which gave me freedom and the opportunity to serve.
To God, the Creator of all.
Contents
Foreword by Senator Bill Frist, MD
Introduction
Part One Will She See?
Chapter 1: Maria, Part 1
Part Two Growing Up in China
Chapter 2: Hangzhou
Chapter 3: The Black Dot and My Mother
Chapter 4: Running from Ghosts
Chapter 5: New Hope Dawns
Chapter 6: Little Bird Flies
Part Three Life in America
Chapter 7: Three Musketeers
Chapter 8: The Yellow Dot
Chapter 9: The White House
&
nbsp; Chapter 10: A Dream Renewed
Chapter 11: A Higher Power
Chapter 12: My Adopted Country
Chapter 13: Gwen
Chapter 14: The Two Letters
Part Four Giving Back
Chapter 15: The Sight Foundation
Chapter 16: A World’s First
Chapter 17: The Dancing Doctor
Chapter 18: A Heart for Orphans
Chapter 19: Dolly
Chapter 20: Giving Back
Part Five I’m So Pretty!
Chapter 21: Maria, Part 2
About the Author
Acknowledgments
How to Help the Sight Foundation
Additional Endorsements for This Book
Foreword by
Senator Bill Frist, MD
I first met Ming Wang in 1999, during my U.S. Senatorial re-election campaign. As a fellow physician and Harvard Medical-school alumnus, it was with a sense of camaraderie that I learned of his many accomplishments in science and ophthalmology, but what I remember most about that first meeting is Ming’s love for our great country that he now calls his own.
Most of us cannot imagine what it would have been like to grow up without the freedom we enjoy as Americans. Ming grew up in China during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, a period when millions of youth were deported to some of the poorest parts of the country to endure a lifetime of hard labor and poverty. The opportunity for education was stripped from Ming when he was only a teenager. It looked as though his dream of joining his family’s long line of physicians was dead. Yet through his tenacity and his parents’ tireless efforts to instill hope where it could be found, Ming fought the communist regime and made his way to the United States to gain freedom and build his future.
Over the years, Ming and I have kept in contact. When I was the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, he visited D.C. and we discussed issues of culture concerning the East and West. When I was teaching at Princeton University, we discussed commerce in China.
We are all capable of making a profound difference when we work hard and put the needs of others before our own. As long as I have known Ming, he has worked hard and selflessly. He has built a prominent ophthalmology practice, and people travel from all over the globe to consult with him about their vision. Many of my own family members have had laser vision surgeries performed by Ming. He also established the Wang Foundation for Sight Restoration, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity that has helped many patients—including children—regain their sight. Without Ming’s efforts, many of these patients would have lived in total darkness for the rest of their lives.
I, too, have peered into the darkness that is lit only by the hope of healing. In Sudan, on the last day of one of my medical relief trips, I was called in to see a patient recovering from a horrific injury. When I walked into the one-room building where he was recovering, I found him huddled in the corner on a bed. He caught my eye, and his smile pierced the shadows in the dim room. I asked what I could do for him, and he told me that two years before, his wife and two children had been murdered during the civil war in Sudan. He had lost his leg and hand to a land mine only eight days before our conversation. What struck me the most was that even in that moment of devastation, this man had called me in to thank me for being there. He said to me, “Everything I’ve lost—my family, my leg, my hand—will be worth the sacrifice if my people can someday have what America has: freedom! Thank you … not for being a doctor, but for being an American.”
I carry that man and his story with me, a symbol for what my work as a doctor and a Senator—and what Ming’s work as a doctor and a philanthropist—is all about: the freedom, opportunity, and compassion at the heart of who we are as Americans. I consider Dr. Ming Wang a friend and a fine American.
From Darkness to Sight chronicles Ming’s remarkable journey from the search for freedom as a teenager in China to building a new life in America, escaping deportation, fighting racial discrimination and financial hardship, and ultimately becoming a world-renowned eye surgeon and philanthropist. His is an inspirational story of moving from East to West, from atheism to faith, from fear, poverty, and discrimination to healing—for himself and others. From Darkness to Sight challenges us to imagine a life without freedom, and shows how hope, determination, and faith helped one man take it back.
William H. Frist, MD
Former Majority Leader, United States Senate
Introduction
You can tell a lot about a person by looking into his or her eyes. Think about it. Eyes are the first thing you look at when you meet someone. There is so much you can tell by the way someone looks at you. We make snap judgments about people based on what emotions we perceive through their eyes. Do they look loving, angry, surprised, or fearful? Do they invite you into a conversation or force you to be silent? William Shakespeare wrote that the eyes are the windows to our souls. I believe that! As an ophthalmologist who has spent decades studying eyes and seeking to understand what makes them work organically, biologically, mechanically, and even emotionally, I have learned to communicate with my patients and understand their feelings through their eyes. With God’s grace, being able to restore their sight and bring them out of darkness and into light has been the most exhilarating and rewarding experience for me. It is what motivates me; I live for that moment!
For the past 30 years I have built a career out of helping people see, having performed over 55,000 procedures (including those on over 4,000 doctors), and have treated patients from nearly every state in the U.S. and from over 55 countries worldwide. I believe that this is much more than just a career; it is a calling, a calling to serve and give back.
At first, back in my early twenties, just after I had narrowly escaped the treacherous throes of China’s Cultural Revolution, I pursued medicine as a family tradition. Having come from a long line of doctors, I had dreamed of being one myself since I was a child. As far back as I could remember, I had watched my grandfather, my father and my mother—who were all doctors—work tirelessly to help their patients. The desire to serve became ingrained in me, but China’s Cultural Revolution nearly destroyed that dream.
If, however, you had looked into my eyes when I first arrived here in the United States in 1982, I’m not so sure you would have seen a twenty-one-year-old who had a desire to serve. I had just endured the most difficult journey of my life, nearly losing everything—my family, my education, my home, my dignity, and even my life. My eyes had been filled with fear. China’s Cultural Revolution had almost stolen the happiness and freedom of my youth, along with the chance to be educated and to grow up with hopes and dreams. I came to America for freedom.
I’m not exactly sure to what I can fully attribute the dramatic change from darkness to sight in my life … but it happened. Maybe it was the determination that had been instilled in me when, as a fourteen-year-old, my education was suddenly cut short and I faced the devastating fate of deportation and a life sentence of poverty and hard labor. Or maybe it was the radical turn of events that occurred with the death of Mao the dictator and the end of the disastrous Cultural Revolution, which catapulted me into an impossible national exam that would determine my fate, once and for all. Or it could have been the tireless devotion of my parents, who fought valiantly to find a future for their son when there was almost no chance for one. Or perhaps it was the dramatic change in my life moving from the East to the West, venturing into the New World to find freedom with only fifty dollars and an English-Chinese dictionary in my pocket, but with a big American dream in my heart. Then again, it was possibly those precious and life-transforming moments, in which so many of my patients had been living in darkness—some even for decades—and had been told they were irreversibly blind and would never be able to see again, patients for whom all other human efforts had failed and I was their last hope, where by the grace of God, along with dedication and hard work, we were able to finally bring them out of darkness and into the light.
Like a grand tapestr
y, it was perhaps all of these interconnecting events and experiences that brought about dramatic changes in my life, and have been woven into a picture that I am grateful for and treasure more than words can say.
When I look back, I am drawn to remember the many people whose eyes have captured the stories of their lives, and mine.
I remember looking into the eyes of my father as we walked among the beautiful and idyllic landscapes of Hangzhou, prior to the sweeping and destructive Cultural Revolution. His gaze was strong, stable and loving, and he taught me the will to fight in life and never give up.
There were also the eyes of China’s dictator, the Red Guards, and militia which were filled with hatred, anger, and violence. Under their repressive and cruel gaze, I almost lost my life at the age of eight!
I will never forget the fearful and wide-eyed stare of the female teacher—one of the few who risked their lives climbing over the school’s high wall in the moonlight to escape—as she turned towards us when my dad and I approached her to see if she was my mom.
I am still haunted by the image of a condemned man, his desperate pleading and the distraught look in his eyes as he begged the crowd for mercy, followed by their shrieks and screams as the cardboard sign that hung over his neck was suddenly flipped at a bone-chilling moment of life or death.
I remember encountering the gentle and encouraging gaze of Professor McNesby, who helped me come to America. His eyes were filled with intelligence, care, and respect for equality. In contrast, there were also the prejudice-filled eyes of Professors Miller and Anderson. Fortunately, the discrimination in their eyes only fueled my determination to work harder to prove them wrong.
There were also the eyes of President Ronald Reagan who, like a grandfather, looked at me with kind, gentle, and supportive attention. In those eyes I saw leadership, strength, and vision.
I remember fondly the eyes of my son, so innocent and filled with longing for love; and the eyes of my mom, who was always smiling and encouraging; and the joyful and happy glances from my brother who, at the age of age six, looked up to me. Even though he played the same musical instrument as I did, he had no idea that I was actually playing it for a very different reason—I was fighting for my life!