Gerard Sutton

Professor Gerard Sutton is an Australian specialist ophthalmic surgeon and a board-certified ophthalmologist in Australia and New Zealand. His specialty is laser vision correction, cataract and lens surgery, and corneal transplantation.

Education

Professor Sutton graduated in Medicine from the University of New South Wales. After completing his ophthalmic training at Sydney Eye Hospital he completed advanced surgical training at St Thomas’ and Moorfields Eye Hospitals in London. He followed this with a fellowship in laser vision correction surgery at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany in 1996.

Career and research

Professor Sutton’s primary work has been in corneal, cataract and refractive surgery. He has completed extensive research in the diagnosis and surgical treatment of keratoconus, a debilitating eye condition. Subsequently he was the first Australian surgeon to perform corneal transplantation with the femtosecond laser and also the first Australian to use an intra-corneal ring segment for keratoconus. Both are promising forms of surgery for the disease. His corneal work has led to an appointment to the Council of the Asia Cornea Society. He was also the first Australian to perform LASIK with the femtosecond laser.

In 2010 Gerard Sutton became the Inaugural Professor of Corneal and Refractive Surgery at Sydney Eye Hospital and the University of Sydney.^[1] Here he established and continues to supervise the first university degree in the world for refractive vision correction surgery training. He also holds a clinical associate professor position at Auckland University and was Visiting Professor to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and Auckland Eye Institute. He continues to see patients as a partner at Vision Eye Institute, Chatswood. In late 2013 Gerard Sutton co-authored a book, “The Naked Eye”, with Dr Michael Lawless. The book provides an overview of laser refractive and lens surgery options for prospective patients and health practitioners in optometry and ophthalmology.^[2]

He has performed over 15,000 surgical procedures in cornea, cataract and refractive surgery. Professor Sutton has lectured continually on a wide variety of topics within ophthalmology both at home and abroad. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers and textbook chapters. He has co-authored two books on Keratoconus and Refractive Surgery.^[3] A highlight of his career was being selected to be Chief Ophthalmologist for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Professor Sutton’s philanthropic activities include volunteering at Vision Eye Institute’s “Vision for Myanmar” project providing cataract surgery for local Myanmar (Burmese) people and developing local training programs.

He is the son of Professor Gerard R Sutton who was the Vice Chancellor at the University of Wollongong for several years. Gerard L Sutton is married with three teenage children and lives in Sydney.

External links

Vision Eye Institute

The Naked Eye Book

Save Sight Institute

Vision for Myanmar Foundation

References