Meet Dr. Barth

Gary Barth, MD, spent the better part of his life dedicated to helping people all over the world improve their vision, heal from diseases of the eye, and go on with their lives secure in the gift of sight.

Dr. Barth played a central role in the development of a world-class ophthalmology community in the North Bay. He founded and practiced in some of the most prominent groups in the region before establishing his Healdsburg practice, to which he gave his name in 2020. There, he offers state-of-the-art eye examinations, an optical shop, surgical services for cataracts, and LASIK vision improvement.

Board-certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology, Dr. Barth was a founding partner of the Eye Care Institute and 4tth Street Laser Surgery Center in Santa Rosa, where he served for 20 years as medical director of the region’s busiest ocular surgery center. He became one of the most experienced cataract surgeons in the area and one of just a handful of laser correction surgery specialists. He also co-founded Pacific Laser Eye Center and was the founder of the Eye Bank of Sonoma.

But that is hardly the extent of his vision for helping patients with their sight. Dr. Barth believes strongly in a three-pronged approach that includes service to his local patient base, international outreach to provide pro bono care to underserved populations around the world, and supporting those charity efforts both financially with direct contributions and administratively by serving on boards of directors and various fundraising efforts.

Internationally, he considers it his privilege to have provided critical, often sight-saving surgical care to patients in India, Nepal, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Vietnam, and Cambodia. Currently, he is leading the effort to establish an ophthalmic training school in Myanmar, which has an insufficient number of eye surgeons and has yet to license professional optometrists.

Closer to home, Dr. Barth spearheaded a pterygium surgery (removal of abnormal tissue from the sclera and cornea) charity event in 2016 for uninsured laborers and vineyard workers in Sonoma County. The effort won the Eye Care Institute Surgery Center and its charity beneficiary Operation Access a $10,000 “All Star Award” from USA Today/Newman’s Own, in conjunction with National Make A Difference Day.

Personally, Dr. Barth also donates a percentage of his practice’s revenues derived from elective vision correction procedures to support organizations providing pro bono eye care around the world. These include the BBH Eye Foundation internationally (of which he is a co-founder) and the Bay Area-focused Operation Access.

Finally, he has provided administrative support for all those activities by serving on boards of several charities dedicated to eye care and other critical health needs. That includes service on the Board of Trustees of the SEVA Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing and treating blindness and other vision impairments to vulnerable populations around the world, and the Prasad Project, another international charity that conducts a number of medical, health, and education programs worldwide.

Dr. Barth did his academic training at Williams College, USC Medical School and Oregon Health Sciences Center, followed by a post-residency fellowship at the prestigious Proctor Foundation at UCSF in Cornea and External Diseases.

Over the course of his career he has won congressional citations from the United States House of Representatives, “Best Ophthalmologist” recognition from both The Press Democrat and The Bohemian reader surveys, service awards from the Red Cross and the Sonoma County Medical Association, and many other accolades.