Tennessee Retina Physicians

Dr. Gary S. Gutow received his undergraduate and medical school training at the University of Michigan. After only three years of undergraduate education, Dr. Gutow was accepted into the Medical School program of the university.  Dr. Gutow served two years as a United States Air Force captain, where he worked at the Department of Ophthalmology at Letterman General Hospital and served in Korea.  After his military service, Dr. Gutow completed his ophthalmology residency training at the University of Michigan and was a faculty member there before completing a vitreoretinal fellowship with Retina Associates and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard Medical School.  While at Harvard, he was selected for the Heed Ophthalmic Fellowship. He trained under the members of Retina Associates, including Charles Schepens, M.D., the "father of modern retinal surgery." Upon moving to Nashville in 1975, Dr. Gutow established and was the first Director of the Retina Service at Vanderbilt University, while also teaching at Meharry Medical School.  In 1978, he founded Retina-Vitreous Associates in Nashville, now Tennessee Retina.  Dr. Gutow holds the distinct honor of being the first fellowship-trained retina specialist in Middle Tennessee.

He is a founding member of the Schepens International Retina Society and a member of the American Society of Retinal Specialists.  He has served on the AMA Survey Committee for Continuing Medical Education and is a past president of the Nashville Academy of Ophthalmology.

Dr. Gutow has published papers on retinal detachment, peripheral retinal lesions and diagnostic instrumentation in ophthalmology.  He brings extensive experience and particular skill to the treatment and surgery of retinal detachment, diabetic retinopathy, macular disease and macular degeneration. 

Dr. Gutow has two grown children and is the proud grandfather of three grandchildren. He is an enthusiastic golfer and skier.