Mr David Gartry is a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital Private Patients. He is an expert in corneal grafting and laser refractive surgery and has extensive experience in both laser and non-laser techniques. He has carried out more than 20,000 LASIK procedures and more than 10,000 cataract and refractive lens exchange procedures.
Mr Gartry graduated in 1978 with a first class honours degree in optometry from Glasgow Caledonian University. He then completed his training the following year at Moorfields Eye Hospital. In 1979, he was awarded the Colebrook and Porter prizes from the British College of Optometrists, the Master’s Prize from the SMC and the J. Stephen Dawson Memorial Award from the Institute of Optometry. He received further medical training at University College London where he won several academic awards, including the annual Sir Stewart Duke-Elder prize in Ophthalmology.
Mr Gartry completed his specialist training in ophthalmology at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London and at Moorfields Eye Hospital. In 1988 while training at St. Thomas’ Hospital, he became involved in the first research conducted into evaluating the then new excimer laser to treat corneal surface disease. He then held a full-time Iris Fund Research Fellowship investigating its potential clinical applications. In 1989, he became the first surgeon in the UK to perform photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) and was responsible for selection and monitoring of all patients in the research trials of St. Thomas’ Hospital. Subsequently, he was submitted his thesis entitled ‘The Development of Excimer Laser Corneal Surgery in the UK’, for which he was awarded the higher degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of London.
In 1992, he joined Moorfields Eye Hospital and from 1998 onwards, he has been responsible for the first LASIK research protocols at the hospital. He has been an active speaker at numerous meetings internationally and has published over 50 scientific papers relating to laser eye surgery, cataract surgery, and corneal surgery.
Mr Gartry underwent LASIK himself in 2000 and was appointed Director of Refractive Surgery at Moorfields in 2007.