Our History

The concept of Orbis began in the late 1960s when Dr. David Paton, a renowned US ophthalmologist, was a faculty member of The Wilmer Eye Institute at John Hopkins. After extended experiences abroad, Dr. Paton recognized the lack of eye care and ophthalmic teaching in developing nations where blindness was widespread. It concerned him because 90% of the world’s avoidable blindness occurs in the developing world, so someone needed to try to close this gap. But the high costs of tuition, international travel and accommodations prevented most doctors and nurses in low-income countries from coming to the USA for training.

Project Orbis is officially launched in 1973 to deliver training to the eyes of the world. In Latin Orbis means “Of the Eye” and in Greek it means “around the world.”

Out of this experience came the idea for a mobile teaching hospital and the inspiration for the world’s only Flying Eye Hospital. Hence, Project Orbis International was born. This led to a unique and lasting alliance between aviation and medicine. With help from other supporters like Betsy Trippe DeVecchi, Niles Bond, George Gould, Thomas Knight, Charles Lord, J. Wright Rumbough and A.L. Ueltschi, a donated plane from United Airlines, and a grant from USAID, they converted a DC-8 plane into the world’s first fully functional teaching eye hospital.

The first Flying Eye Hospital was officially christened in Houston, Texas at the Ellington Air Force Base and took off on its first project to Panama in May 1982.

As replacement parts for the original DC-8 plane became more difficult and expensive to obtain, it became clear that a newer, larger aircraft was needed. In 1992, after a major fundraising appeal, we purchased a wide-body DC-10 to replace the DC-8. Within two years, we had converted the plane into an eye surgery hospital. Our inaugural mission was to Beijing, China.

As we grew over the years, we added hospital-based training programs and fellowships to our portfolio to provide additional skills-building opportunities for eye care professionals. In 1999, to build the capacity of local partners, we created long-term country programs in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam – similar programs are also underway in parts of the Latin America and the Caribbean. Our permanent offices in these countries, run by local staff, develop and implement an array of multi-year projects to improve the quality and accessibility of eye care to residents, particularly in rural areas and impoverished urban communities. Many of these programs focus on the treatment and prevention of childhood blindness, cataract, trachoma and corneal disease.

Orbis’s award winning telemedicine platform, Cybersight, is the brainchild of Dr. Eugene Helveston who first had the idea whilst visiting Cuba in the late 1990s. He realized that although it was helpful to train and teach eye teams aboard the Flying Eye Hospital, without continuity and follow-up training, lasting improvement in the skill set of local ophthalmologists was hard to achieve.

On a return trip to Cuba Dr. Helveston brought his computer and video equipment, allowing Cuban doctors to send follow-up photographs of cases to mentors in the U.S to help diagnose and treat patients. This electronic relationship would be the start of Cybersight. Dr. Helveston saw immediately the benefit of establishing these long-term and long-distance partnerships and began expanding the program.

Thanks to Dr. Helveston's vision and persistence and generous support from a number of donors, Cybersight officially launched in June 2003. Today Cybersight provides long-distance mentoring and education, online courses and lectures, symposiums and case follow-up to eye teams in 199 countries. Our expert volunteers and staff provide on-demand advice for complex cases, mentoring local eye care professionals on diagnosis and treatment.

In 2021 alone, we trained almost 17,000 eye health professionals from 184 countries and regions. We added 15,000 new members, and the videos in our library received more than 4 million views.

Cybersight continues to break records as telemedicine and remote learning becomes an even bigger part of Orbis's strategy, and broader societal behavior. As many sectors and industries begin to shift towards online learning, we have amassed nearly 20 years of experience and content - in large part thanks to Dr. Helveston's vision.

As an affiliate of Orbis International, Orbis Macau was formally registered in Macau in 2006, aiming to raise public awareness on the global blindness problem and call for the support of local community.

Over the years, Orbis Macau had promoted a variety of activities to help raise funds for Orbis’s sight-saving projects and advocate the importance of eye care and health issues. Engaging local corporations and schools through various joint campaigns were proved to be effective ways to drive support from employees and students in the fight against preventable blindness.

To show thanks for Macau donors, every year, Orbis invite them to take part in sight-saving field trips. The most unforgettable element of such trips undoubtedly comes when donors visit hospitals and witness the 15-minute operation that transforms lives. Orbis Flying Eye Hospital also visits Macau every several years, and Macau donors and citizens get a chance to learn more about the sight-saving works of the "Angel with Iron Wings" with guided tours.