Trip to Iceland on Solheimajokull Glacier .
he both defended his thesis and started as a student at the UofL School of Medicine . He noted that during this busy season of life , he said he was only able to stay afloat due to support ( and expert flash-card-making skills ) from his college sweetheart and wife , Amy .
After graduating medical school in 2004 , he entered a oneyear internal medicine internship at UofL but knew it was just a stepping stone for his future specialty – he was eager to get to residency where his true passions lie .
“ With residency , I hit the ground running and wanted to absorb everything I could . While I was doing a rotation in ophthalmology as an intern , I had already bought lenses , because ophthalmologists all need their own set of lenses to examine the eyes . Once I was into residency , I was off to the races trying to learn as much as I could about pathology of the eye and anatomy of the eye and how to distinguish those .”
He began to realize that while he had a good basis of knowledge of things like visual pathways from his graduate work , it didn ’ t translate fully to ophthalmology . He had to switch gears and focus on more practical knowledge of the disease processes that occur in the cornea , retina and optic nerve . It was a ton of new info to process , to say the least .
“ It ’ s amazing how many things can happen to such a small organ in the body . The retina itself , which is what I spend most of my time working with now , is about 250 microns in thickness and lies on the back of the eye . It ’ s a very , very tiny structure , but tons of things can happen to it . The volume of information that I had to learn about the pathology of the eye itself was a lot more than I expected . It was truly fascinating , and it locked in that I ’ d made the right decision .”
In graduate school , he ’ d studied retinal circuits and how they deliver information through pathways to the brain . With this close connection to the subspecialty in ophthalmology , he chose to continue his training with an additional fellowship year . He and Amy ( and now their two sons ) packed up , moving to North Carolina for training at Duke . While he originally intended to do surgical retina , he soon realized that medical retina was a better fit .
Since moving to Louisville in 1995 , they had at that point called the city home for 13 years . Also , his sister had moved to town and Amy ’ s parents and his mom were also planning to move here . It was a no brainer : they knew they ’ d be coming back after training . After fellowship , he joined a local general opthalmology practice in town where he was for more than five years . At a dinner one night , Dr . Purkiss talked to a physician from Retina Associates of Kentucky and after several conversations , was offered a job at their practice .
“ I liked the idea of being in an all-retina practice because we all have the same vision about the business of ophthalmology . Retina and general ophthalmology are pretty different in their priorities and there are some aspects of the business , such as the drugs we use for treatment of retinal diseases , that are easier to do when you ’ re in a large retina practice rather than a solo retina doctor in a multi-specialty practice . Now that I ’ m in one I wouldn ’ t do things any differently . I love the practice I ’ m in . It ’ s all retina , all the time . I think it was meant to be from the beginning .”
In an average day , he sees anywhere from 40-60 patients and treats a lot of diabetic eye disease , macular degeneration and blocked blood vessels in the eye . He also occasionally sees things
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