He started college as an aerospace engineer major at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville . That was short lived , though , and he ended up graduating with a psychology degree with a minor in philosophy . Knowing he was essentially stuck unless he went on to more schooling , he studied for the GRE , looking for a doctoral program in psychology . His interest was in sensation and perception , particularly in the visual system . When looking at programs , the University of Louisville faculty was focused on vision research , and he knew this would be the place for him . He worked under Paul DeMarco and studied psychophysics and parallel visual processing for two years before coming to another realization .

“ I saw what my mentor was doing , and there was a lot of red tape as far as writing grants and trying to keep the lab funded . I liked the teaching aspect , I liked the research aspect , but I didn ’ t like a lot of the bureaucracy of being a college professor . I talked to my mentor about my feelings in that regard and he suggested that I do some clinical research with a friend who had recently come back to town named Jonathan Nussdorf .”

Dr . Nussdorf was an ophthalmologist specializing in glaucoma . They worked on a few projects together and while they

never actually developed a project during that time , Dr . Purkiss realized he wanted to be on the clinical side , the “ applied , doctor parts ” rather than the science side . When he presented his family with the idea of going back to medical school , they were initially apprehensive – preparing for med school while finishing a PhD ? – but ultimately supportive . Of course , they were quick to poke fun and point out one hurdle he ’ d need to overcome quickly .

“ The big joke was about how I thought I could go to medical school when I almost passed out just getting my blood drawn - which is true . I thought they were right , but I really wanted to do it . I ended up starting to donate blood to get myself over the whole needle thing .”

He also had several pre-req courses he needed to complete before he could move forward . While finishing his doctoral work , he took two semesters of physics over the summer , two semesters of chemistry the next fall and spring , and finally two semesters of organic chemistry the next summer . The day after his organic chem final , he took the MCAT .

“ I figured if I could do all of that and did well enough on the MCAT to get in , I could probably handle medical school . But it definitely felt like I was doing two careers at the same time . They were two very different things , there was no crossover at all .”

He applied to and was accepted at several medical schools but decided to defer a year to finish his PhD first . In August 2000 ,

30 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE