Second Television Show “The Office”) in “Philadel- Phia, Here I Come!” He Married O’Neill in 1998
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Former Guthrie actor Mark Nelson, MD, is FEATURE starting residency in family medicine this summer. cast opposite Rainn Wilson (who would go on to play the infamous Dwight on the Second television show “The Office”) in “Philadel- phia, Here I Come!” He married O’Neill in 1998. When the couple was expecting their first child they began to think about living somewhere act that might be more conducive than New After acting professionally York to raising a family. Minneapolis for more than two decades, seemed like that place. Nelson and O’Neill Mark Nelson exited the stage moved to Minneapolis in 2003, and both “ to become a physician. became regulars at the Guthrie and other theaters. By most accounts, he’d made it. BY CARMEN PEOTA Throughout those years, though, Nelson did what his acting professor had advised: He kept asking himself, Why am I doing this? And he had answers: He was good at it. He loved it. He was successful. Subtle shift Yet as time went on, the answers didn’t come as easily. He considered the long PHOTO COURTESYOF MARK NELSON hours and energy he was investing and the fact that he could never count on a regular “ t’s not a simple story, so I don’t tell it where he met his future wife, actress Mi- income. “There is such a level of sacrifice often,” Mark Nelson says when asked chelle O’Neill, and eventually on to Julliard to being an actor,” he says. He found per- Iwhy he left a successful career in act- in New York. forming meant less than it once had. “The ing to pursue medicine. “There was no ‘a When he graduated in 1994, he got applause and accolades are nice,” he says, ha’ moment; it was a slow kind of thing.” parts in touring shows, in productions on “but what I loved most about being an With a voice that betrays training—he and off Broadway, and in television and actor was the research and the time you enunciates a bit more clearly than the aver- films. Aware of the Guthrie Theater’s repu- spent in rehearsal trying to truly under- age person—the Julliard-trained actor be- tation, he contacted Joe Dowling, who was stand the character you were playing.” gins. The starting point: his freshman year the new artistic director, and in 1996 was at the University of Utah in a beginning acting class, when his professor pointed out that 95 percent of actors couldn’t make a living in the field. It was an impossible Mark Nelson at a glance career, he’d tell them. Why do you feel you BORN: Denver, Colorado, 1969 need to do this, he’d ask, hoping to instill EDUCATION: Three years at the University of Utah; BFA, 1994, Julliard the idea that if they didn’t have answers, School; MD, 2016, University of Minnesota they ought to consider a less-demanding field. RESIDENCY: University of Minnesota North Memorial family medicine Nelson took the lesson to heart. By the residency program end of his first year, he decided to study FIRST PROFESSIONAL ACTING JOB: At a small repertory theater in Creede, biology and chemistry instead. But then Colorado he took a trip to New York and saw a play TV APPEARANCES: “As the World Turns” and “Law and Order: SVU” in which one of the actors was also named FAVORITE GUTHRIE PARTS: In “Philadelphia, Here I Come!” playing Mark Nelson. Something about that made opposite Rainn Wilson. Also in “The Master Butchers’ Singing Club” him wonder if he would one day regret his because “It was a treat getting to know Louise Erdrich.” decision not to pursue acting. So he went back to the theater department in Utah, 10 | MINNESOTA MEDICINE | JULY/AUGUST 2016 FEATURE Mark Nelson performing in “She Loves Me” He was particularly drawn to at the Guthrie cide to study more. The next, he’d characters created by Russian Theater in 2005. realize he needed to spend more playwright-physician Anton Chek- time helping his kids with home- hov. “His characters are written work or talking with his wife. “It with such meticulous detail and was a constant struggle,” he says. love to manifest as complex and Despite the challenges, Nelson interesting people,” he says. When didn’t allow himself to look back Jon Hallberg, MD, a University of during those years. And if he had Minnesota Medical School faculty doubts, he didn’t share them, aware member whose patients include that he was asking so much of local actors and musicians, asked his family. “I felt like—not that I the Guthrie who could help him couldn’t question—but I couldn’t develop a show on Chekhov for a question idly,” he says. family medicine conference, Nel- As he moved into his clinical son’s name was at the top of the list. rotations, he began to see that Delving even more deeply into what had made him successful in Chekhov to create the 2008 show, the theater—his curiosity about Nelson began to see him more as characters—would serve him well a physician than a playwright. And in medicine. “The big difference in Hallberg, he saw a living example is that one is written into a play of a physician who had his hands in and one is sitting across from you the arts. “I started to think I’d like in a room,” he says. “As an actor, to be a doctor who’s got this broad you are an advocate for that char- world perspective,” Nelson says. ERICKSON CHARLES T. PHOTO BY acter. You need to believe fully in He began to think seriously about why they do what they do. And going to medical school. that’s been the huge thing that’s Although Julliard had pre- An actor’s insight translated into medicine.” He now pared him for the stage, it had Perhaps because he struggled to balance his studies advocates for his patients—and with his family responsibilities during medical not prepared him for the MCAT. school, or perhaps because he’s just a keen observer that means learning about who they He enrolled in the University of of people (he’s noticed that other physicians are as well as what brought them to Minnesota, and for the next three can seem callous, for example), Mark Nelson is the exam room. “I may not remem- years spent his mornings doing concerned about burnout. He says it’s “a huge issue ber the exact name of five diabetes his prerequisites, his afternoons in medicine.” drugs, but I can meet someone once at rehearsals and his evenings on The former actor thinks he knows why physicians and know their life story,” he says. stage. He finally stopped acting are prone to burning out. “None of it [practicing So now at age 47 as he begins medicine] is about what’s going on with you,” he when he started medical school at says. As a result, many physicians are hesitant to residency in the University of the university in 2012. He was 43 open up about their vulnerabilities.“It’s not easy Minnesota’s North Memorial fam- years old. for doctors to talk about feeling scared, weak or ily medicine residency program, depressed,” he explains. He thinks being involved Nelson is comfortable in a new Settling into a new role with the arts could help them do the introspective role that’s not fully fleshed out. and expressive work that might stave off burnout. As if going to medical school He thinks he wants to work with Making art, he says, “is about giving voice to what’s wasn’t enough (Nelson says it re- going on inside of you.” It builds resiliency. “It also underserved patients, he may do quired him to “exercise a part of his helps to cultivate empathy.” –C.P. some teaching, and he might fol- brain that hadn’t been exercised”), low in the footsteps of his literary he also had heavy burdens at home. hero Chekhov and write a play. Yet His wife was newly diagnosed with he’s not doubting his decision to breast cancer, and his daughters were ages ting through medical school and having leave acting behind. “I don’t miss it all,” 8 and 10. He quickly realized that success a marriage that works and a relationship he says. “I know this is the right place for in school might look slightly different with my kids,” he says. Figuring out how m e .” MM for him than it would for other students. to do that wasn’t always obvious. One Carmen Peota is a Minneapolis writer and “Honors for me was going to be about get- semester, he’d barely pass a course and de- former editor of Minnesota Medicine. JULY/AUGUST 2016 | MINNESOTA MEDICINE | 11.