Burkhard Dick

Burkhard Dick (born 1963 in Brake, Lower Saxony) is a German ophthalmologist who has specialized in refractive and cataract surgery. With his many contributions to the scientific literature on this topic, he is considered one of the pioneers of employing the femtosecond laser in cataract surgery. In the "Power List 2024" by the publication The Ophthalmologist, Burkhard Dick was listed among the world's most 100 most influential ophthalmologists.

Biography
Dick attended high school in his hometown of Brake and graduated in 1983. After studying medicine at University of Giessen, he began his specialization as an eye surgeon. As a board certified ophthalmologist, Dick in 1996 joined the eye hospital of the University of Mainz where he became a full professor in 2003. In 2006, Dick was appointed chair of the department of ophthalmology at the University of Bochum and director of the University Eye Clinic. He turned the clinic into one of the surgical centers with the highest number of cataract patients treated with the femtosecond laser, a new technology which has the potential to improve the precision of cataract surgery which is the most frequent surgical intervention in North America and Europe. Burkhard Dick has been president of the German Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (DGII) from 2016 to 2020; currently he acts as the society's treasurer. Dick is an elected council member and the Secretary (since 2023) of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) and chairman of the society's Research Committee.

Scientific contributions
Dick has published a large number of scientific articles and book chapters on various issues in eye surgery. He has informed the medical community about his experience with the femtosecond laser in special cases like patients with Marfan syndrome, with advanced cataracts, in pediatric cataracts and in individuals who had undergone corneal refractive surgery or are suffering from corneal disease. Dick is also considered a pioneer in Minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) and has lectured widely on the advantages of this technique to treat glaucoma as well as on the limitations of some of these implants. He is the editor of two recent books that have become standard works for eye surgeons globally, on the femtosecond laser in ophthalmology and, published in 2022, on cataract surgery in difficult situations (see publication list).

Entrepreneurship
Both as an innovator and as an investor, Burkhard Dick is involved in the development of new technologies like the miniaturized sensor to measure the intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients and methods to reduce potentially eye damaging blue light exposure of digital devices.

Memberships

 * American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS)
 * European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS)
 * American-European Congress of Ophthalmic Surgery (AECOS)
 * International Intra-Ocular Implant Club (IIIC)
 * European Vision Institute Clinical Research Network (EVICR)
 * German Ophthalmological Society (Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft, DOG)
 * Professional Association of German Ophthalmologists (Berufsverband der Augenärzte Deutschlands, BVA)
 * German Society for intraocular lens implantation (Deutschsprachige Gesellschaft für Intraokularlinsen-Implantation, interventionelle und refraktive Chirurgie, DGII)

Selected publications

 * with JL Alio, RH Osher: Cataract surgery : advanced techniques for complex and complicated cases Springer Nature, Cham (Switzerland) 2022. ISBN 9783030945299
 * with RD Gerste: Future Intraocular Lens Technologies. In: Ophthalmology, published online December 26, 2020.
 * Future perspectives of the femtosecond laser in anterior segment surgery. In: Der Ophthalmologe''. May 2020;117(5):431-436.
 * Small-aperture strategies for the correction of presbyopia. In: Current Opinion in Ophthalmology. 2019 Jul;30(4):236-242.
 * with T. Schultz: Influence of the vitreolenticular interface in pediatric cataract surgery. In: Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. 2019 Mar;45(3):388.
 * with T. Schultz, RD Gerste: Femtosecond Laser in Ophthalmology. Thieme Publishing, New York 2018, ISBN 9781626232365.
 * with Federica Gualdi, Luca Gualdi et al.:Femto Laser Cataract Surgery. Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishing, New Delhi 2014, ISBN 978-93-5090-989-8.
 * with Oliver Schwenn: Viscoelastics in Ophthalmic Surgery. Springer, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 9783540673309.
 * with T. Schultz: Primary posterior laser-assisted capsulotomy. In: Journal of Refractive Surgery. 30, 2014,128–133.
 * with T. Schultz: Laser-assisted cataract surgery in small pupils using mechanical dilation devices. In: Journal of Refractive Surgery. 29, 2013, 858–862.
 * with I. Conrad-Hengerer, F. H. Hengerer, T. Schultz: Effect of femtosecond laser fragmentation on effective phacoemulsification time in cataract surgery. In: Journal of Rrefractive Surgery. 28,2012,879–883.