Trailblazing Her Path: Meet Duke's First Female Ophthalmology Resident Christine C. Nelson
Category: SASOPRS Article Blogs
Feb
25
Trailblazing Her Path: Meet Duke's First Female Ophthalmology Resident Christine C. Nelson
Among the great and remarkable people in our field, Dr. Christine Nelson has a place of honor. She currently holds the Bartley R. Frueh MD and Frueh Family Professorship in Eye Plastics and Orbital Surgery at the University of Michigan, where she has an appointment as both a Professor of Ophthalmology and a Professor of Surgery Section of Plastic Surgery. She is the Director for one of ASOPRS’ longest-running fellowships, with dozens of grants, scores of peer-reviewed publications, and hundreds of lectures and visiting professorships. But the path to such impressive success has not been easy, and Christy has had to overcome many challenges, including being a woman.
Dr. Nelson grew up in Switzerland and chose Wellesley College for her re-entry into America. After completing her BA in Biology and completing medical school at the University of Cincinnati, she matched in ophthalmology at Duke University. Christy was the first woman to be a resident in ophthalmology at Duke. She remembers that some of the faculty greeted her with “hi… we wanted a man.” The Chair, Robert Machemer, was supportive, but others were not happy. She found that she was on call every holiday in the 1st year, as she gradually won their trust and respect.
Christy became passionate about oculoplastics and began looking for a fellowship. She learned which ones would not take a woman (e.g. Dick Tenzel); and along the way, she met with Joel Glaser who offered her a neuroophthalmology fellowship at Bascom Palmer which she took 1983-84, immediately following residency. The following year, she ended up at UCSF as one of the 1st women (Bernice Brown was the first) with Crowell Beard, Earl Rathbun, and John Sullivan in what they called the “freeway fellowship” for 12 months in 1984-85.
After her graduation from the oculoplastics fellowship, Christy joined the faculty at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She felt like she had a lot to prove, as very few women had gone before her. Perhaps because the only previous woman faculty quit after one year, her chairman, Paul Lichter, offered an extension to achieve tenure – it’s unclear if he thought she was not ready, or it was male prejudice, but she didn’t need the extension. She found it harder to get asked to be on committees, to be invited to collaborative meetings, or to be invited to speak.
She remembers that her husband Willis was always there supporting her as they raised their two daughters. For the first 10 years, she was frequently working or on call. But they always made time for dinner together even if one of them had already eaten. She remembers telling herself: “you can have it all, but not all at once”. She remembers that “once I got tenure, I didn’t care about becoming full professor because I wanted to be with the kids.” She and Willis tried to alternate days on primary duty for childcare. Christy says now, “my children are proud of my working – they say it made them more independent, and they admire me as a role model. I just did what I had to do.” Willis has passed away, and her oldest daughter, Elizabeth, lives in Ann Arbor while Catherine, her second daughter, lives in Texas.
Christy got involved in Women in Ophthalmology early in her career. She started in the 1980s and got great advice from other women about tactics to enhance her trajectory. They told her that if you wanted to be on an AAO committee, she should write to several of the chairs. She tried it and remembers that “One never answered, and another replied, ‘why would I want you?’” Ultimately, the third took her. Later, she became vice chair of that committee. Now, she enjoys mentoring and would be happy to chat about ideas and guidance with interested young oculofacial plastic surgeons. Among her pearls of wisdom: Be open to opportunities that come along. Some are unplanned but many can be pursued.
Christy’s work as an educator and researcher has been prodigious. In 2010, she was the first woman to be invited to give the prestigious Wendell Hughes lecture (a combined AAO-ASOPRS honor). She chose the topic: “From Bench to Bedside: Genetics of Congenital Anopthalmia,” reflecting her work with a gene associated with retinol binding protein transporter that led to a novel treatment for children with MAC (microphthalmos, anophthalmos, coloboma) spectrum of congenital disease. Her research interests have ranged from periocular malignancies to thyroid eye disease, but most recently, she has become very active in organizing and writing about global ophthalmology.
About 15 years ago, Christy began to be very active in the international community, initially with the International Council of Ophthalmology and later the World Association of Eye Hospitals (she is the Chair-elect at present) and the ASOPRS Global Opportunities Committee. Since 2015, she has been the co-director of the Kellogg Eye Center for International Ophthalmology and has worked assiduously in Ethiopia at St Paul’s Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa. Her goal has been to help them establish an academic department and research program. She describes this as “Very exciting! It has been wonderful to share the fun and awe. To use the old adage, we’ve tried to “teach them to fish instead of giving them fish.” The western allopathic ideas around medical ethics, fair compensation, and peer-reviewed scientific publications were mostly new to them. She recalls that there were just over 70 ophthalmologists in the entire country when she started, and now they have opened more residencies, and the total is around 140 ophthalmologists. In addition, fewer are leaving the country as the community has become stronger. Dr. Nelson was given the Humanitarian Award by Women in Ophthalmology in 2022 in recognition of this work. Half of the Michigan ophthalmology residents are involved in this outreach program so Christy’s work is likely to continue when she retires. (In fact, one of them did a survey showing that residents are more likely to stay involved in global humanitarian work if they participate in residency.) She has recently been invited to try to get something similar going in Nepal.
Dr. Christine Nelson’s evolution from a ground-breaking female resident at Duke to a ground-breaking Hughes' lecturer to a ground-breaking global educator has been remarkable. Her academic work, together with her teaching, mentoring, and leadership, has inspired and propelled many young women (and men – including me) to pursue similar interests over the past 30 years.