Photo by Daniel Varnado
Maria Aaron, MD’95, calls getting into Vanderbilt University “the pivotal point” of her life. Though her two older brothers left their rural Ohio hometown for The Ohio State University, she wanted to head south for her higher education.
She felt encouraged when a woman she met during her campus visit to Vanderbilt told her she was going to do great things.
“It’s hard to get out of a small town,” she said. “I saw a whole new world at Vanderbilt. It was a complete culture shock. People drove BMWs and Mercedes; I’d never seen cars like that in my life. I paid attention to what other people were doing and figured it out along the way.”
Aaron hit the ground running at Vanderbilt as a dedicated student, sorority sister, and a football and basketball cheerleader. She considered applying for PhD programs in physics or chemistry and then spent a summer working in a lab. She soon “realized it was a very quiet profession” and decided to change course. In her junior year, she applied to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and was accepted.
“When you’re a kid from Appalachian Ohio, you’re always questioning whether you’re good enough to do anything,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be successful, but I love caring for people and knew I’d get more joy out of giving than receiving.”
After medical school, Aaron completed an ophthalmology residency at Emory University School of Medicine, got married at the end of it, and remained at Emory as faculty. And the couple had three children in three years.
“My husband and I wanted six children,” she said. “After the third one, we knew there was no way. He worked for Delta Air Lines and traveled all the time. We ate a lot of candy for dinner and laughed because it was utter chaos.”
In addition to her clinical ophthalmology practice, Aaron served as the Department of Ophthalmology Residency Program Director at Emory for 14 years, which grew into serving as the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education. She also served on the board of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and was in charge of planning the group’s annual meeting.
Today, she practices ophthalmology two-and-a-half days a week and teaches at a county hospital one day a week. She travels almost every weekend of the year but still finds time to support VUSM as a campaign cabinet member, speaking at university events for the Dare to Grow campaign in Atlanta.
“Vanderbilt has opened so many doors for me,” she said. “Everything was possible once I got there.”