Memphis native looks back on a long, distinguished career in ophthalmology
Without trying to be clever, one might easily say that Memphis ophthalmologist Jerre M. Freeman is a man of vision. How else might you describe a doctor who is the founding chairman of the World Cataract Foundation, who was a founder of this city’s MECA Eye & Laser Center, who holds more than 20 patents for lens implants and surgical instruments, and who designed the Punctum Plug, a surgical device that helps correct dry eyes?
The former Navy pilot, who by the way, also served as president of the Memphis Medical Society and of the American Board of Eye Surgery, is in the twilight of his career after 46 years in private practice. He performed 14 cataract and intraocular lens surgeries in the early part of the month last January before suffering two heart attacks, and he hasn’t operated since. But he isn’t ready to answer the rocking chair’s call. He plans to hold onto his medical license and says his future may include some teaching of surgery.
“I’m interested in alternative medicine,” he said, “and have been involved recently in acquiring and helping package and ship an immune booster to a hospital in Sierra Leone to hopefully offer some protection from the Ebola virus.”
A desire to help other people has been a driving force from the time Freeman, at an early age, first began to think of a career in medicine.
“For some reason I was always interested in medicine,” he said. “When TIME magazine would come in the mail at home, I would read the medical section first.”
He was born at Baptist Hospital and grew up in Whitehaven. In high school, he worked at his father’s grocery store on Madison Avenue.
“I even cut one of my fingers working in the produce section,” he said, “but thanks to a good surgeon, my finger was sewn up well enough for me to later become a surgeon.”
An uncle was chair of the biology department at Memphis Normal College, which became the University of Memphis. A brother-in-law was a physician. Medical careers have run in the family.
“In our immediate family of eight, there are five physicians and two Presbyterian ministers,” he said. “Also, two of my nephews and a niece have become physicians.”
Freeman attended Auburn University on a Navy scholarship, and it was during a 3½-year stint as a Navy pilot that he began working toward a medical degree at the University of Rhode Island, where his wife of 58 years, Anne, was a graduate student.
At the same time, the Navy helped him pursue his love of aviation.
“I opted for helicopters because I would rather have been involved in transportation and rescue than in dropping bombs or fighting with enemy pilots,” he said.
“My active duty service was at the height of the Cold War, and my squadron flew off of the aircraft carrier USS Wasp and was tasked with chasing Russian submarines around the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.”
The time in the military proved valuable later.
“It introduced me to a much wider international world, both geographically and culturally, not only with fellow servicemen but also in the places we visited,” he said. “Moreover, I learned about working as a team in the cockpit with clear, concise communication about possible dangers, regardless of the rank of the person talking.
“This was later transferred directly to our eye surgery teams with everyone empowered to be observant for and speak up about impending problems, regardless of their status. This was a new idea for some medical personnel, but is fairly well accepted now.”
After the Navy, Freeman completed his medical degree at UT in Memphis, then interned at Baptist Memorial. After a course in ophthalmology at Colby College, he did his first NIH fellowship to Harvard, where he taught neuro-ophthalmology.
Following residency at UT, Freeman was awarded a Heed Fellowship to Harvard, where he worked with Drs. David Donaldson and Claus Dohlman, researching, writing and editing two books on ophthalmic signs of disease demonstrated by the then-new 3-D photography.
“During the Heed Fellowship,” he said, “my wife had to be in Memphis for the last few months of a difficult pregnancy. I was operating late on an emergency case when the word came that MLK had been shot in Memphis and there was rioting and burning there.
“There were no telephone lines open to Memphis, and I was concerned about my family’s safety until a Boston tower operator called the airport in Memphis and they called Anne and found out my family was safe. The Boston tower operator said, ‘Doc, your wife says they are all OK. There is a National Guardsman standing at the corner about 30 yards away and a tank is circling the block every 20-30 minutes.’”
In the Netherlands, he worked with Cornelius Binkhorst, “the ophthalmologist who worked long and hard to develop lenses and make the intraocular lens operation pioneered by Harold Ridley fairly routine,” he said. “I also worked with Sir Harold Ridley, the inventor of the intraocular lens, in England several times.
“Dr. Binkhorst had windows in his operating rooms, and we adopted the same plan for windows in the operating rooms at MECA. We stay in contact with the weather, and if there is a temporary power loss, we still have natural light until the generator comes on in about six seconds.”
Freeman’s Punctum Plug had its origin when Freeman was in Boston during a particularly cold winter.
“I saw many dry eyes, which causes pain and blurriness in eyes,” he said. “A solution did not come to mind immediately, but when back in Memphis, for some reason, the first dry-eye patient I saw caused the idea to come to mind.
“The plug preserves one’s natural tears, for which there is still no complete substitute, and helps lubricate the eye.”
When asked to explain his success with so many patents, Freeman said, “My mind just seems to work in such a way that I see connections that are not immediately evident to some other people.”
Jerre and Anne have four children, one of whom is deceased. Two sons, James and John, are ophthalmologists at MECA, and their daughter is a missionary living with her family in Honduras.
Guided strongly by his faith, Freeman says it has “undergirded everything in my life and given me and my family a foundation to stand on. There is much I am grateful for. I am grateful to have grown up during the ‘golden era’ of a great nation where ordinary people could develop their potential.
“I have been blessed with good and encouraging friends and colleagues. I am very grateful for my wife. As a young man I was more interested in looks and personality than character traits, so I have been very fortunate that Anne brought so much intelligence, humor, love and understanding to our family.”