Dr. John W. Nelson

I graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1983 and served as a nuclear-trained officer on board two submarines before shifting to the Navy Medical Corps. Following medical school, I completed Diving Medical Officer training and served as head of diving research at the Naval Medical Research Center. After completing specialty training, I completed my 30+ year Navy career as Head, Radiation Oncology at Naval Medical Portsmouth Virginia. After returning to Duke, I served two years as Medical Director, Danville Center for Radiation Oncology, where I helped introduce technological advances into the clinical setting designed to improve treatment precision while minimizing treatment-related side effects. I joined Duke’s Wake County Radiation Oncology team in June 2017, and see patients in Raleigh and Cary. My clinical focus is on multi-disciplinary treatment of gynecologic, genitourinary, and lower gastrointestinal malignancies, with a focus on quality-of-life through minimizing treatment-related side effects.

Dr. Nelson is rated as a Distinguished provider by MediFind in the treatment of Prostate Cancer. His top areas of expertise are Prostate Cancer, Familial Prostate Cancer, Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer, and Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer.

His clinical research consists of co-authoring 3 peer reviewed articles and participating in 2 clinical trials. MediFind looks at clinical research from the past 15 years. In particular, he has co-authored 1 article and participated in 2 clinical trials in the study of Prostate Cancer.