Honoring a favorite professor is goal of campaign
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Children of physicians often become physicians themselves. In Dr. Terry J. Bergstrom’s family, however, it is the love of teaching that has been passed down. Two of his four children are educators.
That’s fitting, as teaching is where many say Dr. Bergstrom has made his most enduring contributions. He has helped to train more than 200 ophthalmology residents and fellows and has taught thousands of medical students. Today a professor emeritus, he continues to teach and to see patients in the comprehensive and glaucoma clinics.
"He made me the ophthalmologist I am today," says Jay Burgett, M.D., who completed his ophthalmology residency at the Kellogg Eye Center in 1997. "I hear his voice in my head during every surgery I perform. He was always available during my training at Michigan. He cared for his students and for our education. He would have done anything for us."
To thank and honor Dr. Bergstrom, alumni of the Department recently renewed a campaign to create the Terry J. Bergstrom Collegiate Professorship. The fundraising endeavor has been energized by several leadership gifts this year. Major gifts from Kenneth and Pat Musson, Michael and Karen Pachtman, Jay and Cynthia Burgett, and Scott Corin and Nina Blumenthal are just some of the contributions that have brought the campaign over the halfway mark.
"We hope to raise the remaining funds and inaugurate the professorship as quickly as possible," says Dr. Musson, who has known Dr. Bergstrom since their residency days at Michigan. "Terry is an exemplary leader and role model, and the respect that so many residents have for him is impressive. He has both a Alumni Join Forces to Complete Professorship great sense of humor and has had tremendous life experiences. He is able to connect with people in terms they readily understand, and he gives his students a confidence that they can carry over into their own practice."
Dr. Bergstrom joined the Department’s faculty in 1980. He had completed medical school, his residency, and a glaucoma fellowship at the University and had spent 25 years as a pilot and later an ophthalmologist and flight surgeon in the United States Air Force. The University of Michigan had a small ophthalmology faculty 29 years ago, and at various times Dr. Bergstrom was called on to serve as chief of the glaucoma service, chief of the low vision service, chief of ophthalmology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and chief of comprehensive ophthalmology. He also served as director of resident education from 1991 to 1998.
"I came here during a growth phase and was always happy to help out where I was needed," he says. The residency director assignment was particularly appealing because he enjoyed working closely with residents. He had planned to become a high school teacher before deciding on medicine.
Teaching suited Dr. Bergstrom, and he won so many of the Department’s teaching awards that residents finally named the annual prize the Terry J. Bergstrom Resident Teaching Award—on the condition that someone else would have to win it.
A professorship in his name that would live on in perpetuity would be a great honor, he says. "The people in this Department have been a second family to me, especially the residents, who were like my children— and are now like my grandchildren. I get a kick out of watching residents learn and grow. They are so smart. They soak up knowledge and techniques like a sponge.
"I’m lucky," he adds, "I have always been able to do what I love."
The residents who have trained with him, Dr. Burgett says, have been lucky, too.
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