Mark A. Terry, MD

I grew up in San Francisco, the fourth child of eight of a pediatrician father and an angel mother. San Francisco in the 60’s was a lot like Portland is now, a small enough town that you actually could run into people you knew downtown and feel safe alone, even in your pre-teen years. I wasn’t quite old enough to be a real “hippie” in the 60’s, but I do feel some familiarity of that time when I visit Eugene, Oregon even today. Nearly all of my five sisters and two brothers went to either Santa Clara University or to U.C. Berkeley, but after I graduated from a Jesuit high school (St. Ignatius), rather than stay in California, I wanted to break away from California and experience the intrigue of the East Coast, so I chose to go to Yale. Actually, I mainly went to Yale because they recruited me to play Division 1 Basketball, and even though they don’t give athletic scholarship money in the Ivy League, basketball was my life back then, and Yale seemed a good match. I worked weekends, summers and Christmas vacations driving a delivery truck to pay the tuition and board at college that wasn’t covered by bank loans. My intercollegiate basketball career ended my Junior year at Yale when I met a girl that required more time and energy than basketball, but the relationship at the time seemed more rewarding than a well-executed jump shot. She was the first love of my life and she went on years later to marry my roommate and best friend at Yale, Carl Camrus, who became a very famous glaucoma specialist, inventing the drug latanoprost and creating an entire new area of glaucoma therapy. Carl died a few years ago and I miss him terribly. I attended my father’s alma mater, St Louis University School of Medicine, and wanted to become a cardiac surgeon or an OB/GYN before I did my rotation in Ophthalmology. From that moment on, all I wanted was to be an eye surgeon. There was a slight delay in my plans for residency because, in order to pay for Medical School, I had to get a military scholarship, and for me, that meant joining the Navy. So after medical school, I did a Navy Surgical Internship at the Naval Regional Medical Center, Oakland, California. The Navy then required me to spend a year as a general doctor with the U.S. Marine Corp in Japan and the Far East before I could enter my Ophthalmology residency training back again in Oakland. After my residency, I did a civilian fellowship in Cornea and External Disease at the University of Oklahoma for a year, then back to the Navy for two final years of service, doing a couple hundred corneal transplants and related subspecialty work at academic programs on the West Coast. After the Navy obligation, I got my first real job at the U of Oklahoma as the young associate of my fellowship mentor, Jim Rowsey. I was going to stay in Oklahoma for my career until my plans were turned upside-down. I met a girl. Her name was Cindy and she was from this place called Portland, Oregon that wasn’t even on my radar screen. She was the most interesting, intelligent and loving person I had ever met, and she still holds that distinction today. After I asked her to marry me for the third time, she actually said yes. I moved her to Oklahoma with me and after two years I learned an important lesson in life: if you marry a girl from Portland, you eventually will live in Portland. In 1987 I had given some lectures at Devers Thorny Issues conference, and in 1990, they were looking for a cornea surgeon and so called me in Oklahoma to see if I was interested. I interviewed with Dick Chenowith and Mike VanBuskirk; Cindy and I stayed at Cindy’s mom’s house, and after lobbying from all sides, I found myself at Devers Eye Institute four months later. Best career decision I ever made. One final personal note: I never thought that love could be as strong as what I have for Cindy, but in September of 1998, twin miracles occurred named Charlie and Nicholas