ESCRS Heritage Lecture 2019

Professor David Spalton trained at Moorfields Eye Hospital and has fellowships with the Royal College of Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. He was Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at St Thomas’ Hospital where he now has Emeritus Status, the Royal Hospital Chelsea (the Chelsea Pensioners), King Edward VII Hospital and is Professor of Ophthalmology at King’s College, London.

At St Thomas’ he specialised in complex cataract surgery and intraocular lens design, and is well known internationally for his interests in teaching, training and research. His interest in posterior capsule opacification was acknowledged when he gave the Ridley Medal Lecture at the ESCRS in 2010. He has published over 180 papers and his textbook ‘An Atlas of Clinical Ophthalmology’ won the prize for the best medical textbook of the year for both the 1st and 3rd editions, a unique feat in medical publishing. It is translated into 10 languages and was voted to be one of the 100 best ophthalmic textbooks of the 20th century.

He is Past President of the ESCRS and of the United Kingdom and Ireland Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (UKISCRS). He has given both the Choyce and Ridley Medal Lectures at UKISCRS and the Ridley Medal Lecture at St Thomas’, and holds an NHS Gold Award as well as both the UKISCRS Gold and Life time Achievement Awards. He is a Trustee of Fight for Sight, the UK eye research charity, a special adviser to the Ridley Foundation, and the ophthalmic adviser to the Metropolitan Police and Motor Sports Association, as well as a consultant to a number of biotech and ocular device companies.

Outside ophthalmology his interests are, apart from his family, gardening and fly fishing, and he is a member of the Garrick Club.