Dennis Robertson, M.D. © MayoClinic.com(Dennis Robertson, M.D. © MayoClinic.com )

Dennis M. Robertson was born in South St. Paul, Minn., and grew up in a musical family on the Mississippi River. He completed his undergraduate and graduate training at the University of Minnesota, where he received a B.A., B.S. and M.D.

Following an internship at San Bernardino County Hospital in California, he worked for two years on Indian reservations under the umbrella of the U.S. Public Health Service. He later completed a residency in ophthalmology at Mayo Clinic and pursued postgraduate fellowship training in vitreoretinal disorders at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami. He returned to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he worked as a consultant from 1967 until retiring from clinical activities in December 2007.

His studies included a sabbatical during 1987 and 1988 at Moorfields and St. Bartholomew’s hospitals in London. His scientific interests have been chiefly in disorders of the retina and vitreous and ocular oncology. In 1999, he became the recipient of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Professorship.