When the late Barrett G. Haik recruited James C. Fleming to join the Hamilton Eye Institute in 1997, it was an easy sell.
Not only was Haik, MD, FACS, quite persuasive, but Fleming, MD, FACS, was more than ready to accept. After 17 years in private practice as an ophthalmologist, Fleming relished the prospect of strengthening his ties to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, where he had earned his medical degree.
Even when he was in private practice, he had volunteered one day a week at the university.
“I’ve been connected to the University of Tennessee for many, many years, and this was an opportunity to go full time,” he said.
Fleming is the Philip M. Lewis Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at UTHSC and director of the Hamilton Eye Institute Orbit Center. He succeeded Haik as chair in 2012.
Haik, the founder of HEI, died suddenly and unexpectedly last summer. Since his passing, the ambulatory surgery center at HEI has been renamed the Barrett G. Haik Hamilton Eye Institute Surgery Center.
Of all of Fleming’s achievements, the creation of the surgery center in 2007 ranks at or near the top. As HEI’s website describes it, “He successfully unified a consortium of the Baptist and Methodist healthcare systems — competitors that almost never work together.”
“Eye surgery has evolved over the years to become a much more outpatient surgery,” Fleming said. “So it was natural to put (the surgery center) in the (HEI) building. We convinced both institutions that we could do this efficiently and asked them to join us in our endeavor, and they did. It was a fair amount of shuttle diplomacy, but it was pulled off.
“We do better than 5,000 cases a year, and more than 40,000 procedures over the last nine years. We are very efficient at doing eye surgery. We’re the No. 1 eye surgery center in the region.”
Fleming, whose credits include past president of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and past president of the Tennessee Medical Association, condenses his responsibilities this way: “The primary job of chairman here is to continue to grow our core values. Those include giving patients the finest care that ophthalmology has to offer, providing the best education possible for future generations of ophthalmologists, recruiting top vision scientists, fostering a fertile environment for translational research, and providing a vertically integrated facility that inspires all of these to flourish together under one roof.”
Fleming’s path to a career in medicine can be traced back to his teenage years when he began working in research labs. His father, Jacob, had made it clear he wanted all four of his sons to become doctors.
The elder Fleming worked in cotton seed mills, flew airplanes, farmed in the Mississippi Delta, worked in a factory and, during World War II, helped build machine gun turrets for B24s. After the war he owned schools that taught blue-collar skills to veterans.
“From there he ran three or four restaurants,” Fleming said. “He made and lost three fortunes. He was an amazing person. He loved to do things. He’s where I got my energy from. He and my mother.”
Fleming’s mother, Frances, raised six children separated in age by 25 years. “She had children under the roof of the house for 46 years,” he said. The four boys became doctors. One sister is a nurse and the other was a real estate agent.
Fleming enrolled for a year at what is now Rhodes College, then transferred to UT-Knoxville, where his sights were set on medicine. Two of his brothers – one 17 years older and the other 12 years older – had shown him the way. After just two years at UT, he entered medical school.
“My father pushed us,” he said, “but the brothers gave me the exposure.”
For 30 years, Fleming has limited his practice to oculoplastic reconstructive surgery. He has scaled back on surgery to the point where he divides his time about equally between it and administration.
When asked to single out his proudest achievement, Fleming quickly said, “My two daughters, easily. Two daughters and a lovely wife.”
Fleming met his wife of 42 years, Anne, in the library at UTHSC when she was in the College of Nursing.
“The great line is ‘they fell in love in the library.’ There’s a Jimmy Buffett song that says that (‘Love in the Library’). They’re redoing it right now on campus because it kind of got in disrepair, and we’re delighted.”
Their daughters are both physicians. Rebecca Phillips, a mother of three, is a pathologist at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans and is head of anatomic pathology. Katherine Fleming-Dutra, a mother of two, is a pediatrician trained in pediatric ER. She works for the Centers for Disease Control with an expertise in antibiotic stewardship.
Counting nephews, there are nine physicians in the Fleming family, and two great-nephews are in med school.
“It just goes on,” Fleming said. “It’s in the family in multiple specialties from radiology to internal medicine to surgical oncology – I’m the only ophthalmologist – to pathology to pediatrics, all over medicine.”
At age 67, he does not have retirement on his radar screen.
“I come from a family that lives a long time and works for a long time,” he said. “So I’m enjoying myself. When it becomes unenjoyable, I’ll change.
“If you have to get up and go to work for 30 years or whatever it is and enjoy what you do, it’s not a really hard job. It’s a rewarding job, and it has been for me.”
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