2015 Outstanding Alumnus Award Winner
Growing up in Loretto, Tennessee, during the time of Camelot, Mark Evers aspired to the highest office as a child. He vividly remembers seeing President John F. Kennedy with his parents in May 1963 when Kennedy spoke in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Henry Thomas, MD, the general surgeon in Lawrenceburg, not far from where Evers grew up, inspired him to pursue a career in medicine. “In our small county in southern Tennessee, there was God and then a close second was Dr. Thomas who worked very long hours as a solo practitioner,” Evers said.
As a teen, Evers had the opportunity to shadow Thomas and describes him as “an amazing surgeon and physician who was very caring and would do anything for his patients and their families.”
Evers received his bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1979. Following an internship and a general surgery residency at the University of Louisville, Evers did his fellowship in gastrointestinal physiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, where he remained until 2009.
Evers calls his fellowship at UTMB the most meaningful detour in his career. Galveston was his first destination west of the Mississippi, and it was the farthest he had ever been from his family. “This time served as the basis for an academic career in surgery which has been extremely rewarding and gratifying,” Evers said. By the time Evers left UTMB, he had risen through the ranks to professor and Robertson-Poth Distinguished Chair in General Surgery and the director of the Sealy Center for Cancer Cell Biology.
In May 2009, Evers was recruited to the University of Kentucky as director of the Lucille P. Markey Cancer Center, professor and vice chair in the Department of Surgery, and director of the Oncology Service Line for UK HealthCare. Evers led the efforts for the Markey Cancer Center to achieve National Cancer Institute designation in 2013 (the only NCI-designated cancer center in Kentucky), a crowning achievement for the institution and the region.
Throughout his career, Evers has authored more than 600 peer-reviewed publications and abstracts and more than 70 reviews and book chapters. His research has been continuously funded from the NIH for 23 years. A highly-respected teacher, Evers has mentored more than 70 students, residents, fellows, housestaff, and junior faculty, many of whom are now faculty at various institutions across the country with active independent research laboratories. Evers also maintains his own active clinical practice that deals with surgical problems related to GI oncology, endocrinology and soft-tissue tumors.
This die-hard Rolling Stones fan aspires to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Evers says his family grounds him, so it’s no surprise that his proudest personal accomplishments are his 30-year marriage to his wife, Karen, and his two children, Lauren and Ben.
View Past Medicine Award Winners