Dr. Jose De la Cruz is an ophthalmologist specializing in corneal surgery. As a professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, De la Cruz has been recognized as a recipient of The Best Doctors in America for his cutting-edge research in artificial corneas and top-quality surgical efforts. I had the opportunity to speak to Dr. De la Cruz about his medical career. All quotes have been taken directly from that interview.

LS: What is your job?

JC: I’m a physician and surgeon. My specialty is ophthalmology (eye surgery). Within my specialty, I have a sub-specialty in the cornea which is the front part of the eye. In that specialty, we do corneal transplants to improve vision for patients, laser surgery, and almost all types of eye surgeries that focus on the front part of the eye. 

LS: What does a typical day look like? 

JC: Typically, a day spent in a clinic is seeing between 40 and 50 patients. It’s usually a lot of interaction with the patient first to know what the problem is. We have to know a little background about their history, like if they had any eye surgery in the past. Then, we can examine the patient and come up with a diagnosis and a treatment plan for them. We can also book them for surgical procedures down the line. We also have surgical days, where instead of seeing the patients in our offices, we see the patients in the operating room. That’s a totally different environment. We have to scrub for each case and do surgery on each patient’s eyes and then see them the next day post-operation. In addition to that, I also do some academic work. Once every two weeks, I focus on paperwork for clinical research.

LS: What’s most challenging about balancing the practice of medicine with the business side?

JC: It depends on what environment you’re working in. For example, if you’re a medical doctor that owns your own practice, you have to also run the business. You have to run your practice to make sure employees are doing their job and that you have payroll. If you work in a university, you’re basically an employee of a bigger enterprise, but you still have to deal with some decision making like hiring and firing and deciding what type of product to buy for the practice. When I’m here in Chicago, I work under the university umbrella, so I’m more of an employee. While I’m in Puerto Rico, I run my own practice, so I have to make sure it runs properly and everybody’s doing their job. 

LS: What was your first job, and what did you learn from it?

JC: When I was 13 years old I worked in a bread factory. The factory distributed bread, but it had a little store next to the bread factory that sold little snacks and whatever bread was already expired for people that were feeding their cattle. People would come and ask for five stacks of old bread, so I would have to go make sure the bread was expired and bring it to the customers. It was a very labor intensive type of job, from eight o’clock in the morning until four o’clock in the afternoon. And at 13 years old, I used to do all this hard work, and it was an eye opener. You look at how much you make for the amount of work you put in. It made me appreciate the time working to make money and also the simple things right to aspire for like getting a degree. It had nothing to do with what I’m doing now, of course, but it was very valuable to me.

LS: What were your interests and activities in high school? Were there any experiences that ended up being surprisingly relevant to your current role?

JC: I was born in Puerto Rico, and everything used to be baseball. Even though I enjoyed it, I realized that I was not going to make a career out of it, but I wanted to continue in sports. When I was going to high school, I started getting interested in cycling, and I was fortunate enough to be picked for the junior national team. I had to study and then train, because at that level, you needed to be really good. So, that allowed me to get disciplined early on. That indirectly helped me have all the endurance to really stick to the long term studying that you require when you enter medicine, and also the focus you need when solving a problem, or fixing something in surgery. Cycling is one of those things that you might initially think has no relation to medicine, but it does. In cycling, you have to keep on doing something towards a bigger goal, just like medicine. When you enter medicine, it’s a long career. When I started cycling I realized in order to be good, you have to train and be very disciplined which helped me down the line to stay focused. If I didn’t see how it was a long term goal, I might have given up.

LS: What did your formal education look like to become a doctor?

JC: Healthcare is a very broad field that has so many paths, but corneal medicine is very clear cut. Medical school is four years to get your M.D. After that, you can decide what you want to do within the medical field. Each given specialty then has a path to reach the ultimate goal. For me, I finished my bachelor’s, and then I spent two years working for my master’s in physiology. I entered medical school and then had three years of training for my specialty: ophthalmology. Because I also had a sub-specialty in corneal, I had two additional years of education. 

LS: Was there a massive career decision you’ve made that has led you to where you are today?

JC: I don’t think it was a singular decision. It was more being present and open to different opportunities. I was willing to always be open and go where those opportunities took me. After I went to Indiana University to do my undergraduate and master’s degrees, I came back to Puerto Rico for medical school. I wasn’t really sure what I was heading towards, so I had to open up to opportunities. When I was in medical school trying to decide on my specialty, I actually had surgery in my eye, and that’s why I decided to pick ophthalmology. I really thought that I was just going to do my training in New York and then come back to Puerto Rico. But, I was lucky enough to enter corneal training in Harvard after that. While I was at Harvard, there were so many other opportunities that came up that I just couldn’t say no. I ended up in Chicago for exactly that reason: for opportunities of research and professional growth. 

LS: Can you share a time when you failed or faced a major setback? How did you handle it and what did you learn from it?

JC: I’m not unique in the sense that I still have failures, but I always think about what I’ve learned from different obstacles that I’ve had in my life. Failures are just learning opportunities. When you go through the path of academics and medicine, you’re going to find failures. You’ll have difficulties in an exam or lesson, and if you let those things tackle you, then the challenge’s ultimate goal will be achieved. I always fight and try it again. For example, when I was 10 years old, my parents divorced. That was a defining moment for me, but not in a bad way. It allowed me to mature and get more flexible and understanding in different situations. It taught me to take a negative situation and make it into a positive. Learn from challenges, accept it, but don’t let it define you. 

LS: Did you ever have a mentor or an individual who significantly influenced your career, and if so, what did they teach you? 

JC: I’m 56 years old, and because of my profession, a lot of my mentors are now my patients. And of course, I have to mention my parents. They are the ones that basically define you, the people who allow you to be who you are. One standout medical mentor was a physician overseeing my fellowship in Harvard. His name was Klaus Doleman, and people called him the father of modern corneal surgery. He was devoted to every one of his mentees, and even after I left Harvard and Boston, he always continued to promote me professionally and make sure that I was thriving. His mentorship really inspired me to push forward our specialty and our field. I’ve been involved in many projects and different devices that hopefully will be helping the field. So people like that are who have inspired me. We’re blessed to have them. 

LS: What advice would you give to your high school self? 

JC: If I was able to tell myself anything, it would be to really maximize the time that we have. Be efficient. Even though I felt like I was busy, I could always do more. I could train more. I could study more. It’s easy for me to say now because I’m on the other side of the grass here. But, if I was able to find more motivation, I think I would have reached greater things. I’m satisfied and I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished, but I always think I could have done more. On the other hand, I would want to have a life as a teenager, to enjoy it. Looking back, those were the best times of your life. Enjoy life safely, of course, but also try to be as efficient as you can. 

LS: What advice would you give to young people looking to join the medical field? 

JC: Your education is ongoing. Five years after you finish your training, the knowledge that you have is already outdated. Be persistent. There will always be small obstacles in tests and lesson material. Focus on them, but think about the long term. Don’t be discouraged when your buddy that’s in finance gets going quickly. They’re just finishing in four years, and you’re still halfway through your medical training.  Stay the course.

Lighting round

LS: Coffee or tea? 

JC: Cappuccino. But only on clinic days. I can’t have shaky hands on surgical days.

LS: Morning person or night owl? 

JC: I’m a morning person, but my wife’s a night owl, so my lights are always on. 

LS: Favorite book?

JC: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck.

LS: Cats or dogs? 

JC: Dogs, hands down. 

LS: Favorite movie?

JC: Breaking Away. 

LS:  Most-used app? 

JC: The weather app, especially in Chicago.

LS : If you could travel anywhere in the world with no strings attached, where would you go?

JC: Puerto Rico. You’ve got the beach and mountains. You can’t beat that. 

This is the third interview in a series of columns asking executives, entrepreneurs, and non-profit leaders about how they made it and what “it” looks like. Have a person of interest or company you’d like to see featured? Feel free to email me at [email protected].