Who We Are

Doctors Book Club all began over a lunch of shrimp PoBoys in New Orleans, Louisiana with ophthalmologists Steve Christiansen and Daya Sharma. Envious of his wife’s participation in a community book club, Steve mentioned his interest in having a Twitter-based book club for other ophthalmologists. Daya, a passionate reader, world traveler, and Australia-based ophthalmologist loved the idea of reading books about medicine and suggested expanding the audience beyond just eye surgeons but to physicians everywhere.

Within seconds Daya sent a tweet to Ash querying her interest in starting an online book club for doctors, and, as they say, the rest is history.

Steven M. ChristiansenFounder

Steve Christiansen is an ophthalmology resident at the University of Iowa. He blogs about eyeballs and ophthalmology at EyeSteve.com. Find him on Twitter@eyesteve.

Daya SharmaFounder

Daya Sharma is a cataract, refractive and corneal surgeon in Sydney, Australia. Find him on twitter @drdayasharma

Erika ChristiansenGraphic Designer

Erika Christiansen is a freelance graphic designer and the owner of ITSSO Design. From doctors and their practices to outdoor clothing and soup packaging, she is wrapped up in designing for just about every industry. Find her on Twitter@itssodesign.

Guest Moderators

Dr. Mary MillerGuest Moderator, January 2020

Mary qualified from University College Cork, Ireland in 1988. Mary trained and worked in palliative medicine in Ireland, Sweden and the UK before starting as a consultant in palliative medicine in Oxford in 1998.

Mary has a strong interest in education; she completed a Diploma in Learning and Teaching at Oxford University 2005, was Training Programme Director and Regional Specialty Advisor (2002 – 2008) and has led the Oxford Advanced Courses in Pain and Symptom Management since 2005. Since the inception of OxCERPC in 2017, Mary and the team are focusing on building an exciting portfolio of courses, building research readiness and reaching out to practitioners across the globe.

Mary was Clinical Lead at Sobell House between 2009 and 2016. Mary now leads the end of life care project across OUH. This Quality Improvement project is the largest in her portfolio of QIPs.

Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer, Oxford University
Lead for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust EOLC project ‘Improving care of the Dying’
Director OxCERPC

Dr. Stella HornbyGuest Moderator, March 2018

Dr. Stella Hornby is an ophthalmologist at the Oxford Eye Hospital in Oxford, England. She runs the eye casualty department (a type of urgent eye clinic) and has a special interest in primary care ophthalmology, diabetic retinopathy, low vision, and education. She is very involved in ophthalmology education, and teaches ophthalmology courses to general practitioners, optometrists, and medical students. She can be found on Twitter at @hornbystella and online at primarycareophthalmology.co.uk. Dr. Hornby has been a longtime supporter and contributor to Doctors Book Club, and we are excited to have her moderate our March 2018 chat about the book, “Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks” by Ben Goldacre.

Dr. Lauren DownieGuest Moderator, November 2017

Dr. Lauren Downie is an obstetrics and gynaecology registrar in Melbourne, Australia. She is passionate about women’s health and literature, frequently writing about these interests on her blog, drlaurendownie.com, and her twitter feed, @thedrwrites. She has been very involved in Doctors Book Club from our very first book, When Breath Becomes Air, and her blog about the book was also posted on our website, which you can read here. We are thrilled that Dr. Downie will moderate our November 2017 chat about the book Do No Harm, by Dr. Henry Marsh.

Maren Y. Fuller, MDGuest Moderator, September 2017

Maren Y. Fuller, MD is currently a pediatric pathology fellow at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, having just recently completed a cytopathology fellowship and pathology residency at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. She is a leading advocate for pathologists using social media to educate medical colleagues and engage with the public, frequently posting interesting cases to her Instagram and Twitter feeds (@marenwhymd). Dr. Fuller been an active chat participant in Doctors Book Club from the beginning, and we are very excited that she will be leading our September 2017 Twitter-based discussion of Cutting for Stone by Dr. Abraham Verghese.

Justin Kreuter, MDGuest Moderator, July 2017

Justin Kreuter, MD is a clinical pathologist and specialist in transfusion medicine and tissue typing at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Kreuter is a passionate educator and clinician, with clinical interests in managing complex coagulopathies and trauma resuscitation. We are thrilled to have Dr. Kreuter moderate our July 2017 discussion of Dr. Sidney Mukherjee’s book, The Gene: An Intimate History. As a clinician whose clinical practice includes several of the inherited coagulopathies and hematologic disorders discussed in Mukherjee’s book, we are certain that Dr. Kreuter’s will help create an engaging discussion of this wonderful book.

Lesley Barron, MDGuest Moderator, March 2017

Dr. Lesley Barron is a general surgeon working and living in Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada. She frequently blogs at https://canadianfemalesurgeon.wordpress.com, with topics ranging from her experiences as a trainee and physician in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, to insights on life as a female surgeon and mother of three children. We are very excited to have Dr. Barron lead our March 2017 discussion of Atul Gawande’s best-selling book “Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science.” Her experience as a general surgeon, having faced many of the same emotions and experiences as did Dr. Gawande, will create an interesting and engaging discussion on the merits and lessons of this best-selling book.

Sara Taylor, MDGuest Moderator, January 2017

Sara Taylor is a family physician in Alberta, Canada. She frequently shares her thoughts on health and wellness at www.SaraTMD.com, with topics ranging from physician burnout and stress management to mentorship, leadership, and love. Her writing is warm and insightful, and her tips for improving wellness are both clinical and caring – perfect for physicians AND patients! We are thrilled to have Sara share her insight as our guest moderator for our January 2017 book discussing John Elder Robison’s Look Me In The Eye, and are certain her experience as a family physician, spouse/mother, educator, and wellness enthusiast will facilitate a wonderful discussion of Robison’s memoir on his life with Asperger’s syndrome.