Dr. Lisa Nijm is a board certified ophthalmologist and corneal surgeon at Warrenville Eyecare and LASIK and an assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary in Chicago. She also serves as the CEO of Women in Ophthalmology, mentors physicians through MDNegotiation.com and advises leading medical device and pharmaceutical companies on new innovations in ophthalmology.

After graduating summa cum laude from Benedictine University, Dr. Nijm pursued a post-graduate education that uniquely combined her interests in patient care and health care policy advocacy.  She was one of two students accepted into a 6 year dual M.D., J.D. degree program through Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and School of Law.  The program, offered by only 8 graduate schools in the country, was designed to train physicians who believe a legal education will augment their primary career goals in medicine. Upon completing a top ranked corneal & refractive fellowship at the University of California at Davis, Dr. Nijm established a subspecialty clinic in an underserved region of Illinois.  It was there that she became the first surgeon in central Illinois to perform femtosecond LASIK. Subsequently, Dr. Nijm ventured to open her own practice in the western Chicago suburbs in order to provide compassionate, expert eye care to patients in her hometown. She also has a passion for teaching and serves on faculty at the renowned University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary in Chicago, IL. Further, she is one of the directors of the Osler Ophthalmology National Board Review course and has taught over 2500 ophthalmologists over the past decade. Dr. Nijm serves on advisory boards at two universities and the editorial boards for several ophthalmology publications internationally. Her unique educational background and experience working in Washington DC on behalf of patients with the FDA and congressional leaders has made her a highly sought after advisor. Dr. Nijm is an invited lecturer internationally, a published, peer-reviewed author, and has received numerous recognitions, including being named one of the top 50 most influential ophthalmologists in the world on The Ophthalmologist’s Power List 2019.  She has been honored with several Castle Connolly Top Doctor Awards, the Senior Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology 2020, the Rising Star Alumni Award from Benedictine University 2019, the AMA’s Inspirational Physician Award 2018, and was named one of Northwestern-CDH 50th Anniversary Heroes in Medicine.

Not one to let the pandemic slow her down, in the past year Dr. Nijm set up the infrastructure to conduct clinical trials in her practice and created a training program to teach other ophthalmologists how to do the same. She launched a new educational endeavor, MDNegotiation.com to provide negotiation coaching to help her fellow physicians, especially women, minorities and young ophthalmologists.   A highlight of her year, Dr. Nijm was most recently interviewed by Walter Issacson for his Trailblazers Podcast by Dell Technologies on advancements in vision and innovation.