The Hill School is pleased to announce that David Paton, M.D., F.A.C.S., a member of the class of 1948, has been named the recipient of the 2012 Sixth Form Leadership Award. Dr. Paton will become the 14th recipient of the Schools Sixth Form Leadership Award, which is presented annually to an individual who has proven to be an exemplary leader and true role model for Hill students. This years award presentation will take place on Thursday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the theatre of the Center For The Arts. The event will kick off The Hills Career and Leadership Summit, a two-day event with activities involving career exploration and networking for fifth and sixth form students, alumni, parents, and friends of the School.

Dr. Paton is an internationally recognized academic ophthalmologist, now retired. He also is a humanitarian and founder of several non-profit organizations dedicated to providing much needed preventative eye care and treatment to the citizens of developing countries. He is the founder of and former medical director of Project ORBIS International, the worlds only Flying Eye Hospital and mobile teaching hospital.

Dr. Paton will become the 14th recipient of the Schools Sixth Form Leadership Award which is presented annually to an individual who has proven to be an exemplary leader and true role model for Hill students. This years award presentation will take place on Thursday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the theatre of the Center For The Arts. The event will kick off The Hills Career and Leadership Summit, a two-day event with activities involving career exploration and networking for fifth and sixth form students, alumni, parents, and friends of the School.

Dr. Paton is a 1952 graduate of Princeton University and 1956 graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. After completing a medical internship at Cornell University Medical Colleges 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 Hospitals Wilmer Institute. He traveled overseas to Jerusalem, Jordan for his fourth year of his training. Inspired by his father, the late Dr. R. Townley Paton, also an ophthalmologist and founder of the worlds first eye bank in 1944, Dr. Paton established one of the earliest eye banks in the Middle East. He was decorated for his efforts by King Hussein of Jordan.

Dr. Patons past faculty appointment sites have included The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, where in addition to his work in ophthalmology he served for four years as dean of admissions for The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Baylor College of Medicine in Houston where he also served as chairman and director of the colleges Cullen Eye Institute; and Cornell University Medical Center in New York, where he was a professor and served as chairman of the department of ophthalmology at the Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn and Queens, which was affiliated with Cornell.

A former Markle Scholar in Academic Medicine, Dr. Paton is past chairman of the American Board of Ophthalmology and former secretary of continuing education and vice president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). He is the author and/or editor of a number of textbooks and the first author of 160 published original medical papers; his clinical work has favored corneal and cataract surgery.

Dr. Paton has received numerous accolades primarily as a result of his role as the founder and medical director of Project ORBIS, which since its creation has carried out more than 1,000 programs 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 is the recipient of two honorary degrees: Princeton Universitys Class of 1952s Distinguished Classmate Award for Career Achievement (1992), and Johns Hopkins School of Medicines Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award.

He also has been recognized by the French Legion of Honor and received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Dr. Paton served for eight years on the medical advisory board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also served on the advisory board of the Foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

His most recent and active professional participations involve the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation, the Foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, some medical consultancies, and non-governmental organizations related to eye care abroad, including One World Sight Project and World Eye Organization. He has also written a provocative memoir, Second Sight: Views from an Eye Doctors Odyssey, which details, in part, the delight of participating in the evolutionary status of global eye care and the infringements upon medicine by law and business.

Dr. Paton is the father of one son, David Townley Paton. He resides on the South Fork of Long Island, N.Y. with his wife, Diane Johnston Paton. Continued...

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Hill School to honor Dr. David Paton