Rand Paul Returns to 'True Calling' — Performing Eye Surgeries

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — a potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate — is busy performing free eye surgeries during Congress' summer recess.

Paul, an ophthalmologist, wasn’t able to keep his practice for profit because of Senate rules so he’s doing pro bono work all over The Bluegrass State during the August break.

"There are various eye clinics around the state that will donate their facilities, and their nurses, and their follow-up appointments, their equipment for Dr. Paul to come and perform surgeries on pre-screened candidates," Paul communications director Moira Bagley told Politico.

"Most of these surgeries are for cataracts, and these are people that don’t have insurance, that are low-income cases," Bagley told Politico. "This is something he really loves . . . This is his true calling, his true profession, if you will, so this is the least he can do to give back."

Paul, the state’s junior senator, graduated from Duke University School of Medicine and established his own clinic in 2007.

His medical career follows in the footsteps of his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who also graduated from Duke and was a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force before going into private practice as an obstetrician-gynecologist.