LouLife

Photos By John Nation

The results of this survey came right from the source — the physicians themselves. We arranged for questionnaires to be mailed to the 2,000-plus members of the Greater Louisville Medical Society. The survey asked: “If you or a member of your family were in need of medical care or treatment, who among Louisville-area physicians would you choose to provide medical care in the following specialties?”

The responses numbered 175, representing all disciplines — from primary care to specialists ranging from allergists to vascular surgeons. They listed up to five physicians, in order of preference, in the primary-care categories of pediatrics, family medicine, internal medicine and obstetrics/gynecology. Each first-place vote earned a doctor five points, second-place four, and down to one point for a fifth-place vote. For the specialists, respondents were asked to list up to three, with three points going to the first preference, two to the second and one to the third.

The points were then tallied to compile the listings that follow, with the 10 (or more in case of ties) top-scoring doctors in the four primary-care categories listed, and the five top-scorers in the specialties.

We should stress that all doctors listed on these pages received multiple mentions from their peers. We make no claims that this is a statistically valid survey, and that’s a major reason we have not attached numbers to indicate how many times each top doc was mentioned. There are numerous other skilled and successful physicians in the community. In the end, it’s each patient’s choice as to which doctor — whether identified here or not — will provide the best care and be the best fit for an individual’s needs.

Janet Chipman, M.D. - General Surgery
Asked what qualities it takes to be a surgeon, Dr. Janet Chipman says, “I think you have to be the kind of person who takes responsibility and can do so under stress. You do certainly have to be facile, have technical ability and a lot of energy, but I think it’s more related to being willing to make a decision on the spot, without referencing anything. You are the captain of the ship. When you’re in the OR you can’t say, ‘Oh, I don’t know enough about this; I’ll have to read up on it and come back.’” She might have added, judging from the sandwich bags of nuts, veggies and cookies she stores in her lab coat as she heads off to the OR, that you have to be willing to miss lunch, and many times dinner.

The 50-year-old started out with an engineering degree, working as a chemical engineer for five years before taking on med school at the University of Louisville, where she picked up her M.D. in 1990 and stayed on to complete her residency in general surgery in ’95, settling in a small, four-doctor practice, Surgical Associates of Louisville.

“It’s an absolute requirement that I feel like my patient trusts me before I go to the OR,” she says. In the pre-surgery face-to-face appointment, she says, “you may not establish a friendship, but you should establish a partnership where they believe you are going to do what’s right for them and they feel good about that.”

Patricia Purcell, M.D. -

Her pathway to medicine was a rather unconventional one. Purcell, 51, was a stay-at-home mom who went back to college to take classes and was paired with a mentor who happened to be the department chair of chemistry. “He encouraged me to set my goals high and pursue medical school,” she says. Following his guidance and discovering a natural aptitude for the work, she graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in 1994 and completed her residency through the Universityof Louisville’s Department of Pediatrics in ’97.

When asked what her favorite part of the job is, Purcell instantly responds, “It is so alluring and fun to watch children grow. I love well checkups; you can see how much they change. One appointment they are a child and the next they will be bordering on puberty.” Another fulfilling aspect for Purcell, who says pediatricians t/files/storyimages/to be big softies: “I love parents to brag about their kids — I will share in the joy of their child with them.”

Derek Damin, M.D. - Allergy and Immunology
During his childhood and on into med school, Dr. Derek Damin visited an allergist weekly for shots and treatments. So it’s quite apropos that, after years of battling allergies himself, he would choose allergy and immunology as his specialty. “Understanding the symptoms my patients undergo from firsthand experience, I strongly empathize with their suffering,” Damin, 33, says. A native of Owensboro, Ky., he was accepted into the University of Louisville School of Medicine during his senior year of high school, having been chosen for U of L’s G.E.M.S. (Guaranteed Entrance to Medical School) program.

“Allergies are the products of an overactive immune system,” Damin says. Turning molehills into mountains, hypersensitive immune systems trigger allergies to common things — grass, pollen, peanuts — that shouldn’t bother us, attacking the skin, nose and eyes. When asked whether the “OhioValleycrud” is verifably as potent as its reputation suggests, Damin says he can provide facts and his opinion. Fact, each year Louisvilleis ranked one of the worst allergy cities. The data is based on amount of pollen in the air, the number of allergy medications filled, and the number of allergists. Several years ago Louisvilleranked number one. “My hypothesis is that Louisvillehas a sicker history than other cities,” Damin says. “Located in a mid-temperature zone, we have two climates, so there is more to be allergic to here in Louisville. These facts, with the increase of ozone and pollution, bring in more patients to the allergists here.”

Steven Nakajima, M.D. - Endocrinology — Reproductive/Fertility
Dr. Steven Nakajima was attracted to women’s health for a seemingly stereotypical reason: They were more interested than men in their own well-being. Among those seeking help, one group drove him to his subspecialty: reproductive endocrinology and infertility (REI). “Every doctor is driven by the desire to help people,” he notes. “I noticed that infertile women needed the most help.”

A Californianative, the 51-year-old’s medical career has taken him from coast to coast. Upon receiving his bachelor’s and M.D. from St. LouisUniversity, he completed an OB/GYN residency in California, his subspecialty and clinical fellowships in Vermont, and returned to the West Coast for his first job. In 1998 Nakajima was hired as director of the Universityof Louisville’s REI fellowship program. U of L offers one of only 35 REI fellowships in the nation, an advantage for doctors and patients. “The patients we take care of get to be exposed to some of the latest research,” Nakajima says. “They have opportunities with us that can’t be found elsewhere.” Under his guidance the program has joined IntegraMed, a network of top infertility service providers, and explored in-vitro maturation, a process that allows the egg to mature before being fertilized — both of which reduce patients’ costs and allow more people to receive treatment. “The core of what we try to do,” Nakajima says, “is give people a way to meet their goal — to conceive — really, to restore hope.”

Elmer Dunbar, M.D. - Anesthesiology and Pain Management
New Hampshire native Dr. Elmer Dunbar came to Louisvilleto start his anesthesiology residency back in 1978, when University of Louisville Hospital was still named GeneralHospital. In the OR there, he recalls, “we used to see a lot of gunshot wounds. Being from New Hampshire, I’d never seen anything like it in my life. I called my dad and said, ‘You won’t believe how many gunshot wounds I’ve seen in one day. It’s like the Wild West out here.’” It was then that he became interested in a post-surgical condition called complex regional pain syndrome — burning residual pain from irreparable nerve-fiber damage — and decided to open a pain-management clinic as a sidelight to his anesthesia duties in the OR. In the past 26 years of private practice, he’s gone from spending 90 percent of his profession anesthetizing surgeons’ patients to 95 percent of it alleviating people’s pain at his Dutchmans Parkwayclinic, Pain Control Network, through such means as epidural injections and implanting pain pumps and spinal-cord stimulators.

“In a way,” the 55-year-old Dunbarsays, “I’ve morphed from the guy at the head of the table putting you to sleep to a surgeon who is actually doing procedures.” Still, he says, he’s always enjoyed the former. “I like being in the operating room,” he says. “I like the action. I like the pharmacology. I like seeing different types of surgeries.”

Michael Brown, M.D. - Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose and Throat)
It’s quite a mouthful (and throatful), otolaryngologist. But consider that the specialty title used to be otorhinolaryngologist — oto being ear, rhino being nose and laryn being throat. Even that doesn’t cover all of the physiological territory Dr. Michael Brown, 35, deals with; there are also the nerve, tissue and vascular systems of the face and neck, including face and neck plastics. Listing the surgical procedures he’s completed on children and adults during one recent morning, he says, “We had two sets of tympanostomy (middle ear) tubes, a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, and then I (removed) a salivary gland tumor of the hard palate, and followed that up with a neck mast excision (mast cells produce histamine), so I do a little bit of everything.”

A Henderson, Ky., native who finished med school at the University of Louisville in 1999 before undertaking a five-year U of L residency in otolaryngology, Brown credits his mother, who is a nurse, for pointing him toward medicine (he decided to become a doctor “very early” in life) and for providing him with a nurturing attitude toward his patients. “I think I strive to educate the patient, give them a lot of choices,” he says. “Originally I thought about going into primary care, whether that was internal medicine or pediatrics, but I really just enjoyed all the surgical aspects. I think because of (her influence), I take a lot of time and care for my patients, and I think they know that I’m really in it for them.”

Wayne Garcia Villanueva, M.D. - Neurological Surgery
The office of “Dr. V,” as Wayne Villanueva is affectionately referred to by his staff, hints at the meandering path this philosopher-cum-neurosurgeon has followed in life. Books about jazz and opera cont/files/storyimages/with stern surgical tomes and pictures of a young Villanueva as a weightlifter. “I always play opera in the OR,” he says with a smile, “but they only let me play one or two CDs.”

The open display of warmth puts anyone — especially patients ill enough to require brain or spinal surgery — immediately at ease. A soft-spoken son of Filipino immigrants, Villanueva, 49, is the youngest in a family of doctors and nurses. He tried to rebel against the family calling, first earning a degree in philosophy from University of California San Diego, then a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in 1981. After a stint working for Discover magazine, he was finally struck with the urge to go to medical school.

At Columbia again, he eventually decided on neurosurgery, and completed his residency in Cincinnati in 1995. Today he’s in a two-surgeon practice with Dr. Steven Reiss. Villanueva modestly refutes the genius label put on his profession, which often requires him to perform six- to 12-hour high-risk surgeries. “In truth, you don’t have to be a genius to do brain surgery,” he says. “Rather than raw intellectual ability, or raw genius, you need stamina and you have to be able to completely concentrate on nothing but the task at hand.”

Family Practices - Drs. John Roberts & Janet Smith
It might surprise you to learn that, of the Greater Louisville Medical Society’s roughly 2,300 active members, 150 have physician spouses — sworn to more than the Hippocratic oath. One such couple mixing marriage and medicine are neonatologist Dr. John Roberts and specialist in cardiovascular diseases Dr. Janet Smith, who have managed to raise five kids while juggling long workweeks — she as managing partner of the 25-doctor practice Cardiovascular Associates and director of Norton Suburban Hospital’s women’s heart center; he as the University of Louisville’s associate dean for graduate medical education and director of the pediatric training program at Kosair Children’s Hospital, when he’s not tending to babies with respiration problems in neonatal intensive care. Both 56-year-olds grew up in Louisville, did their undergraduate work at Bellarmine University and graduated from U of L’s med school together, by then married, in 1976. They do, however, face the world from different temporal perspectives. “I’m a night person; he’s a morning person — that’s just the way we’ve always been,” says Smith. “It was even that way when we studied at school.”

As far as having family members in medicine, retired pathologist Dr. George Schrodt Sr. and his five physician offspring — Randy (integrative psychiatry), Barbara (pediatric dermatology), Jerry (interventional radiology), Chris (integrative psychiatry) and Ron (internal medicine) — take the cake. And just to stretch the Schrodt family a little further into medicine, Ron’s wife Tammy is a pediatrician, and Randy’s wife Christine is the daughter of renowned hand surgeon Harold Kleinert.