{"id":26669,"date":"2025-04-25T21:19:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T21:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26669"},"modified":"2025-04-25T21:23:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T21:23:33","slug":"david-paton-creator-of-flying-eye-hospital-dies-at-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26669","title":{"rendered":"David Paton, Creator of Flying Eye Hospital, Dies at 94"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An idealistic ophthalmologist, he came up with an ingenious way to treat blindness in far-flung places: by outfitting an airplane with an operating room.<\/p>\n

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David Paton, an idealistic and innovative ophthalmologist who started Project Orbis, converting a United Airlines jet into a flying hospital that took surgeons to developing countries to operate on patients and educate local doctors, died on April 3 at his home in Reno, Nev. He was 94.<\/p>\n

His death was confirmed by his son, Townley.<\/p>\n

The son of a prominent New York eye surgeon whose patients included the Shah of Iran and the financier J. Pierpont Morgan\u2019s horse, Dr. Paton (pronounced PAY-ton) was teaching at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the early 1970s when he became discouraged by increasing cases of preventable blindness in far-flung places.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore eye doctors were needed,\u201d he wrote in his memoir, \u201cSecond Sight: Views from an Eye Doctor\u2019s Odyssey\u201d (2011), \u201cbut equally important was the need to beef up the existing doctors\u2019 medical education.\u201d<\/p>\n

But how?<\/p>\n

He considered shipping trunks of equipment \u2014 almost the way a circus would \u2014 but that presented logistical challenges. He pondered the possibility of using a medical ship like the one that Project Hope, a humanitarian group, sent around the world. That was too slow for him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cShortly after the first moon landing in 1969, thinking big was becoming a reality,\u201d Dr. Paton wrote.<\/p>\n

And then a moonshot idea struck him: \u201cCould an aircraft be the answer? A large enough aircraft could be converted into an operating theater, a teaching classroom and all the necessary facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An idealistic ophthalmologist, he came up with an ingenious way to treat blindness in far-flung places: by outfitting an airplane with an operating room.David Paton, an idealistic and innovative ophthalmologist who started Project Orbis, converting a United Airlines jet into a flying hospital that took surgeons to developing countries to operate on patients and educate local doctors, died on April 3 at his home in Reno, Nev. He was 94.His death was confirmed by his son, Townley.The son of a prominent New York eye surgeon whose patients included the Shah of Iran and the financier J. Pierpont Morgan\u2019s horse, Dr. Paton (pronounced PAY-ton) was teaching at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the early 1970s when he became discouraged by increasing cases of preventable blindness in far-flung places.\u201cMore eye doctors were needed,\u201d he wrote in his memoir, \u201cSecond Sight: Views from an Eye Doctor\u2019s Odyssey\u201d (2011), \u201cbut equally important was the need to beef up the existing doctors\u2019 medical education.\u201dBut how?He considered shipping trunks of equipment \u2014 almost the way a circus would \u2014 but that presented logistical challenges. He pondered the possibility of using a medical ship like the one that Project Hope, a humanitarian group, sent around the world. That was too slow for him.\u201cShortly after the first moon landing in 1969, thinking big was becoming a reality,\u201d Dr. Paton wrote.And then a moonshot idea struck him: \u201cCould an aircraft be the answer? A large enough aircraft could be converted into an operating theater, a teaching classroom and all the necessary facilities.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26671,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26669"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26672,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26669\/revisions\/26672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}