David Paton, Creator of Flying Eye Hospital, Dies at 94

Science|David Paton, Creator of Flying Eye Hospital, Dies at 94

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’s 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.

“More eye doctors were needed,” he wrote in his memoir, “Second Sight: Views from an Eye Doctor’s Odyssey” (2011), “but equally important was the need to beef up the existing doctors’ medical education.”

But how?

He considered shipping trunks of equipment — almost the way a circus would — 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.

“Shortly after the first moon landing in 1969, thinking big was becoming a reality,” Dr. Paton wrote.

And then a moonshot idea struck him: “Could an aircraft be the answer? A large enough aircraft could be converted into an operating theater, a teaching classroom and all the necessary facilities.”