Dr. Lisa Nelson is a Native New Yorker who has recently retired from the practice of General, Oncologic and Vascular surgery after 27 years in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. She was in private practice as a partner of Boice-Willis Clinic, a Physician owned multi-specialty Clinic formed in 1914. She was also formerly co-director of the Nash/ UNC Health Care Systems Breast Clinic.
Dr. Nelson received her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She obtained her medical degree from Yale University in 1985. She did her surgical internship at UCLA, and after serving a three-year military obligation , she completed her surgical residency at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Dr. Nelson has been involved in community engagement actively since her arrival in Rocky Mount North Carolina in 1993. She served on the boards of My Sister's House, a local women's shelter, Conetoe Family Life Center, and was a founding board member of Rocky Mount Preparatory Charter School serving for 8 years. Dr. Nelson travelled on five occasions as lead surgeon to Northern Uganda with Westminster Medical Missions and to Sierra Leone with the Saving Lives Initiative to teach specialized surgical technique to surgeons and residents at University of Sierra Leone College of Medicine. She went on to financially sponsor two Ugandan surgeons specialty residency training.
Locally, Dr. Nelson serves on the board of Trustees for the nonprofit Triangle Bike Works. This organization takes black youth and youth of color on multi-day cross country cycling tours visiting historical African-American sites across the country. Her most recent Initiative for this youth mentoring program was the totally vertically integrated Princeville Homecoming Century cycling event , 10k run and Festival. The intent of Princeville homecoming is to showcase the power of cooperative economics and a circular economy within the black community. The festival has been postponed to 2021 because of the current covid-19 pandemic
Creating business connections during the course of planning the event led to her subsequent involvement In the creation of the Black Business Matters Initiative Fund. After witnessing the displacement gentrification of Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant, Washington DC, Durham and Raleigh, Dr. Nelson resolved to make it her mission to prevent that from happening in Rocky Mount. She recognizes the direct connection between racist economic disempowerment and the social determinants of health with the resultant disparate poor health outcomes in black community. Collaborating with other like-minded individuals resulted in the formation of the Rocky Mount Renaissance team.
Dr. Nelson is mother to three grown daughters and has two grandchildren. In her spare time Dr.Nelson enjoys long distance cycling, scuba diving and jumping out of planes and off cliffs anywhere on the planet