David L. Guyton, MD

David Guyton is a problem solver, a clinical innovator, an inventor, a teacher, and a communicator. He followed his grandfather, father, and uncle into medicine, becoming the first of a record ten siblings all physicians.  He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1969.

After his residency in ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins’ Wilmer Eye Institute and a Fellowship in Strabismus with Gunter von Noorden, he returned in 1977 to Johns Hopkins as the Director of Strabismus and Pediatric Ophthalmology, until 2011, where he continues to serve as the Zanvyl Krieger Professor of Ophthalmology.

Dr. Guyton’s contributions to clinical optics and strabismus have achieved international recognition. In clinical optics he gave us one of the first automated refractors; the proper techniques for prescribing cylinders, measuring strabismus with prisms, and centering corneal surgical procedures; and the Potential Acuity Meter for assessing the potential visual acuity in cataract patients.  In strabismus he has given us the exaggerated traction test for assessing oblique muscle tightness, an explanation of oblique muscle overaction and A and V patterns in patients with strabismus, an explanation of the mechanism of dissociated vertical deviation, advanced adjustable suture techniques for strabismus surgery in both adults and children, and theories of how and why strabismus changes over time. .

For more than 35 years Dr. Guyton has been the foremost teacher of ophthalmic optics and clinical refraction in the United States. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and has served on the Board of Directors, and as President, of both AAPOS and ARVO.

The most recent of his 320+ publications and 18 U.S. Patents deal with remote optical systems and automated screening devices for detection of strabismus and defocus in infants and children.