Despite being over 1,200 miles away from them, throughout her workday as a comprehensive ophthalmologist and uveitis specialist in Oregon, Julia Xia, MD, will often hear the voices of her mentors at the University of Colorado Anschutz Department of Ophthalmology, where she completed her residency and fellowship training. Whether it be in the operating room when she’s performing cataract surgery or when she’s in the clinic preparing a treatment plan for a complex case of uveitis, Xia can recall their pivotal lessons.
“In my head, I still hear words of advice from my mentors about how to approach certain problems,” Xia says. “My practice is very much influenced by the role models I had in Colorado.”
Originally a neuroscience major, Xia’s journey to becoming the first-ever uveitis fellow at CU Anschutz was unexpected. Now, after completing her fellowship at the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center in 2025, she is the first ophthalmologist at EyeHealth Northwest, a private practice in Oregon, who is specially trained in treating uveitis — a broad term for a type of eye inflammation that can lead to vision problems and permanent blindness. In a unique move, Xia combined her interest in uveitis with her passion for performing cataract and minimally invasive glaucoma surgeries, aiming to grow both practices at her workplace.
“My residency and fellowship training gave me a strong clinical and surgical foundation,” she says. “Thanks to CU Anschutz, I feel well prepared for a lot of the urgent issues that arise in my clinic.”
Growing up in New Jersey with a passion for science, Xia was initially drawn to neuroscience after working in a lab that researched neural pathways in animal models. She attended Rutgers University Honors College, and while there, she shadowed a general surgeon and became fascinated.
“That’s how I became interested in medicine. It was amazing to see how this surgeon used delicate skills to fix a problem with immediate results, and I wanted to help people in that way, too,” Xia says.
Before attending medical school at Emory University, Xia accepted a yearlong scholarship through the Fulbright Scholar Program to teach English in Indonesia. Working alongside an Indonesian teacher, Xia helped teach over 300 students, though she spent much of the year learning herself.
“My students and co-teachers were so kind and welcoming, and they taught me so much about Indonesian culture,” she says. “Living outside my comfort zone made me a more flexible, open-minded person. I truly feel it changed my life and outlook in a lot of ways, which often translates into my work in medicine when I interact with people of different backgrounds.”
With her new mindset, she started medical school and an unexpected field called to her — ophthalmology. It was in the Emory Eye Center and Grady Hospital where she observed cataract surgeries and was captivated by the microscopic, detail-oriented work.
“It was amazing to see the impact these surgeries could have on someone’s life,” she says. “I thought ophthalmology offered a great balance of surgery and medicine, and the people in the field were fantastic.”
Although she had never visited Colorado before, Xia was drawn to CU Anschutz’s ophthalmology residency program because it was one of the few programs that offered the opportunity to train at four diverse medical institutions — the UCHealth Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center, Denver Health, Children’s Hospital Colorado, and the Rocky Mountain Regional Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
“It’s rare to find a program with all four of those settings, and the variety really enriches your medical education,” she says. “Also, when I interviewed at the CU Anschutz School of Medicine, it was palpable that the residents and faculty really liked each other. They acted more like a family rather than just people who work together. I wanted to learn from attendings who were open and approachable like that.”
Once at CU Anschutz, Xia was further exposed to different subspecialties in ophthalmology, and uveitis caught her attention. Treating uveitis can be complex given that inflammation can affect any part of the eye, and there are many different conditions that can cause uveitis. For example, it can be caused by infections like the herpes virus or autoimmune conditions like sarcoidosis, but oftentimes the cause is unknown.
“I noticed that uveitis patients were the ones who I kept thinking about after treating them. The complexity of their problems stood out to me,” Xia says. “My residency uveitis mentors, Dr. Alan Palestine and Dr. Amit Reddy, showed me that treating uveitis can be fascinating and rewarding, and they were a huge reason why I chose to pursue a uveitis fellowship. I also saw how they built decades-long, meaningful relationships with their patients.”
At the same time, Xia was interested in working as a comprehensive ophthalmologist, also known as a general ophthalmologist, and performing eye surgeries.
“Cataract surgeries are such a joyous part of ophthalmology because it’s a procedure that can improve someone’s vision overnight. It’s rewarding and instantly gratifying, and it really makes me love my job,” she says.
She initially was torn on which route to take, but when she expressed her interests to her mentors, they helped carve a new path for her.
“This uveitis fellowship was designed to have both clinical uveitis training as well as cataract and minimally invasive glaucoma surgical training,” she says. “I learned how to manage complex uveitis pathology in clinic with Dr. Alan Palestine, Dr. Amit Reddy, and Dr. Lynn Hassman, and I was fortunate to expand my surgical skills with mentors like Dr. Mina Pantcheva, a glaucoma specialist, Dr. Michael Wildes, a cornea specialist, and Dr. Niranjan Manoharan, a retina specialist. It was the best fellowship year I could have asked for.”
After completing her 12-month fellowship, Xia joined EyeHealth Northwest, a large multi-specialty private practice in the metro area of Portland, Oregon. The practice stood out to her because it is a physician-owned, multi-specialty group, offering her a chance to put both her surgical and uveitis skills into action.
Now, as the first uveitis-trained ophthalmologist at the practice, she is working to build up the uveitis workflow, taking in a lot of new referrals and starting patients on uveitis treatments, while also performing cataract and minimally invasive glaucoma surgeries.
“I’ve learned that uveitis is everywhere. The need is there, and I’m trying to build a system to treat these patients well,” she says.
Recent research, published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology examined data between 2013 and 2023, found that there is a rising incidence of uveitis — with at least 278,333 people having a uveitis diagnosis — and an increased prevalence of low vision and blindness among people with uveitis. It underscores the need for more uveitis specialists like Xia, and she hopes her legacy at the Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center will inspire future ophthalmologists to join the field.
“I’m really hopeful that the unique fellowship at CU Anschutz will continue to interest candidates in the future,” she says. “Uveitis is a small specialty, but there’s a lot of need for it across the country. I encourage aspiring ophthalmologists to consider uveitis as a specialty because a uveitis practice can take on many different forms and can mix well with all surgical specialties.”