Noting that Singapore has one of the world's highest rates for myopia, Dr Cheryl Baumann and her husband opened The Lasik Surgery Clinic (LSC) at the Paragon in 2005.

Three years later, it has done more than 23,000 operations, making it one of the country's busiest eye clinics.

Now, the Beijing-born president of the Singapore Medical Group - LSC is a subsidiary - is setting her sights on raising $50,000 from the sale of a new book on Lasik treatments to fund eye-care research.

Born to a film-actor father and writer mother, the 39-year-old graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Beijing University.

She went to Germany to study law at the University of Cologne and was admitted to the German Bar in 2005. She has a PhD in law. She applied for German citizenship and dropped her original Chinese name Bi Xiaoyan for her current one.

In 2005, she came to Singapore to explore business opportunities and met her husband, 54, a Singaporean businessman.

On the appeal of Lasik, she related an anecdote about meeting a mother of three young children.

'She came to us shortly after the devastating tsunami hit Indonesia,'' said Dr Baumann, who is expecting her first child, a boy, in June.

'When we asked why she wanted Lasik treatment, she said that if any disaster were to hit Singapore, with her high myopic power, she probably could not see well enough to save herself, let alone her three children.'

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Apr 20, 2008.