James McCarthy, ’03, graduated from Oregon State with an H.B.S. in biology, a passion for inquiry, admission to the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and a self-described “heart-pull” toward alleviating suffering. Now a practicing surgeon, published author and developer of a promising new biotechnology, James places “the value of human life” at the center of his research, advocacy and patient care.
James reached out to Honors College Dean Toni Doolen earlier this year expressing gratitude for the foundations he obtained at Oregon State and in the Honors College and offering encouragement to current students. “I often think back to the sense of belonging I felt, the invitation to think creatively and the mentorship that continues to influence me,” he says.
James’ Honors College experience has also meaningfully shaped his parenting approach as a father of three. “Beyond providing for my children,” James says, “my job, really, is to teach them how to think. And my experience in the Honors College was very much along that line: a little bit slower, more nuanced, more granular — less recite, regurgitate,” he says. “The memorization of facts has a place, but the development of critical thinking is like a meta to the accumulation of fact.”
James recalls Farside Entomology — an honors colloquium course which continues to be offered by long-time HC faculty, Mike Burgett — as one of his favorite Oregon State courses. Beyond Farside, he fondly reflects on his thesis work. “That was wonderful,” he says. “I worked with Cheryl Thornburn in the School of Public Health. It was an epidemiologic study on culture toward safe sex practices on campus. I was working for the county health department at the time, going into local high schools and teaching with the public health department, and that work became part of my project.”
Outside of his thesis work in public health, James spent three years studying fungal toxins in a lab led by OSU professors Linda Ciuffetti and Will Gramble. Altogether, his early research experience in the Honors College would prove pivotal down the line as he sought to shape medical science and culture beyond the scope of his own practice.
“I don’t have a research component to my job by way of contract,” James says. He works in Portland as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, board-certified in both reconstructive surgery and pediatrics. “Yet I’ve gone on to get NIH grants and write articles published in major medical journals. There’s no reason I must do it, but there is a passion to do it. Not only that passion, but the experience of how to formulate a question, write a journal article and defend your thoughts — it all began in the Honors College. And it has continued for 22 years, up to the point of creating a technology that hopefully will change the world.”
The technology James is speaking of is called CT neurography. This recently patented method allows nerves to be imaged in live organisms in much the same way that bones are imaged using x-ray.
The idea for his nerve-imaging technology was born out of a patient encounter. “Near the end of my training in hand surgery, a young girl came to see us who had a condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. She had such great discomfort in her arm that she wanted the limb removed. Listening to her story, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be helpful if we could look at the nerve in the same way that we look at a fracture in an arm — but instead of looking at the fracture, we’re looking at the diseased nerve to try and understand it?’
“And then I thought, ‘Well, we need a contrast for the nerve. We could look at it with a CT scan or x-ray, but we don’t have any type of contrast.’ That sent me down the road of looking for a contrast agent that would bind to nerves, and I thought back to my time in Organic Chemistry at Gilbert Hall.” James successfully merged two FDA approved drugs — lidocaine and iodine — to create a new patented compound called NeuroView contrast. In January 2024, his collaborators at Washington University in St. Louis injected the contrast
into a rat. “It demonstrated this 3-D picture of a nerve being imaged under CT scan — in a living animal, which had never been done before.” With this novel technology in hand, James will next be investigating whether “nerves overwhelmed by some pain process look different than normal, healthy nerves. Because if there’s a difference, then for the first time, we can look at pain.”
While CT neurography remains in the early stages of development, James is hopeful that it will one day empower physicians with improved diagnostics and surgical navigation, protecting patient safety and advancing the treatment of chronic pain.
James promotes quality care and patient wellbeing at a cultural level too, for instance, in his advocacy for prohibiting mobile devices in the operating room, which he articulated in a recent piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Humans are of infinite value, and when we are operating on them — or caring for them, period — we should do that with all that we are. We can’t both take care of them and text at the same time,” he says.
He also leads by example: “I’m convinced humans mostly learn in a ‘monkey see, monkey do’ sort of way,” James says. “Culture comes first. You could have the right systems in place, but it’s the real-time modeling of patient-centered care — showing that medicine is about humanity, not just business — that truly makes the difference.”
Looking back, James encourages current students to “slow down” and resist the pressure to rush. “There can be this sense of urgency,” he says. “But I think there’s an enjoyment of life that we miss if we’re too focused on artificial schedules or pressure to conform.” If he could do it again, he says he would have taken time off after OSU. “Slowing down creates space for developing character, investing in community and focusing less on yourself. It allows you to become a better thinker. Excellent thought — not only about your studies but
about life — takes time.” As he often reminds his team in the operating room: “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”