UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center Magazine Spring 2017 | Page 14
center profile
“Part of what led
me into academic
medicine was
that teaching
aspect that I saw
growing up. My
parents were
always instilling
their gifts into
others, and I
thought that
would be a great
way to keep the
job interesting
forever.”
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Growing up in Kentucky as the youngest of
three boys, Jeffrey Nix, M.D., spent a great deal
of time playing sports. As a result, he heard many
motivational quotes from various coaches over the
years.
One of those quotes is a philosophy that he
brings to his role as a urologic oncologist at the
UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, and that is:
“Mindset is everything.”
“As a junior faculty or cancer surgeon, you can
get beat down a bit,” Dr. Nix explains. “If I’m not
centered and stable, I can’t provide good care for
my patients. Everything that happens can be a
positive or a negative, depending on how you look
at it. The reality is that the mindset we come in
with is everything to me.”
Dr. Nix did not grow up wanting to be a
doctor necessarily. He describes himself as being
a good student who made good grades, but was
mostly focused on his athletics and extracurricular
activities. His parents, however, provided an
inspiration and direction for him.
“I’d always wanted to be in a service industry,”
he says. “My parents were both teachers, and I
saw the joy they got from serving others. Getting
to do that as a vocation – and getting paid for it –
was intriguing to me.”
Dr. Nix left Kentucky to attend the University
of Alabama, where he enrolled in a pre-medicine
program, and upon doing so, knew immediately
that he had made the right decision. The next
question, though, was to determine what aspect
of medi