David Paton, MD, is an internationally recognized academic ophthalmologist, a humanitarian and founder of several non-profit organizations dedicated to providing eye care to the citizens of developing countries. Now retired, Dr. Paton is the founder and former medical director of Project ORBIS International, the world's only Flying Eye Hospital and mobile teaching hospital.
Dr. Paton is a 1952 graduate of Princeton University and a 1956 graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. After completing a medical internship at Cornell University Medical College's New York Hospital, he spent two years in ophthalmology research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. He completed his five-year residency in ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital's Wilmer Eye Institute. Inspired by his father, the late Dr. R. Townley Paton, also an ophthalmologist and founder of the world's first eye bank in 1944, Dr. David Paton established one of the earliest eye banks in the Middle East. He was decorated for his efforts by King Hussein of Jordan.
Dr. Paton has received numerous accolades for Project ORBIS, which since its creation has carried out more than 1,000 program in 88 countries, enhanced the skills of more than 288,000 eye health care personnel, and helped provide quality eye care treatment to more than 15 million people. He received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Ronald Reagan in 1987 and was made Chevalier in the French Legon of Honor in 1988.
