125 Years Through 125 Stories: Six Reflections of Legendary PCOM Professors

OUR STORY. OUR HERITAGE. OUR INSPIRATION.

Introduction by Jennifer Schaffer Leone; faculty stories by Janice Fisher

As the College moves toward its Quasquicentennial in 2024, Digest Magazine invites you to celebrate the spirit, character and myriad accomplishments of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine’s first 125 years. Through an ongoing series, presented in different mediums, we’ll consider the College in the context of its past and future, chronicling the illustrious and untold stories of its people. We’ll capture the richness and reality of place and the magnified moments that collectively reflect PCOM and its enduring commitment to meaningful education and experience.

YEARS STORIES 125 125 THROUGHJOIN US AS WE TELL

To start, we proffer six reflections of legendary PCOM professors—as told by today’s professors. Their words connect an intellectual community that extends across generations. In addition, we bring to light the stirring story of PCOM’s second African American alumna, Edna K. Williams, DO 1926, a diminutive osteopath with mighty hands and boundless drive.

ROBERT MEALS, DO ’56

Bob was my teacher and my colleague. As a teacher, he was brilliant. Yet, I don’t think he ever recognized his own genius— how he informed his art with fresh perspective, sage advice and a hint of silliness. … On the first day of class, we were thrown into a big auditorium. During the course of his radiology presentation, Bob would put up someone’s picture on that big screen and ask us to answer his clinical question. We usually had no idea what he was talking about. Perhaps that was our first reality check: ‘Boy, we’re really in medical school now.’ But very quickly, we realized that he was not concerned about our answers. He was more focused on creating an encouraging educational environment, in every class, to take away some of our paranoia about making a mistake. The wisdom of his teaching was understanding that only when you let go do you open yourself up to learn. … Years later, I was fortunate to have an office very close to where he taught the third-year students. There was a mandatory radiology clerkship; you had to experience Bob regardless of whether you wanted to be a radiologist or a family doctor or an internist. During the first week, it was kind of quiet in that classroom. By the beginning of the second week, you’d hear laughter, singing, all kinds of shenanigans. He had puppets; he was Mister Rogers before Mister Rogers. He would have the students whistling, humming, playing guitars, doing skits. … What could be more embarrassing than standing in front of your peers and singing? But once you got over that embarrassment, you opened yourself up to learning. … Bob hasn’t been with us for a number of years; he passed away in 2005. But hospital administrators—across the state and region—still tell me they can identify PCOM grads because they’re not intimidated by reading images and films. They never have that deer-in-a-headlight look. They know logically how to look through the film, look at the soft tissue, the anatomical components. … Bob won teaching awards over and over again. … He told me, ‘This is how I enjoy teaching.’ The excitement, the enthusiasm, the energy that he created in his classroom came back to him, made him more spirited and more inclined to give. … Even when he got sick at the end, he never retired. His enjoyment of teaching actually penetrated the classroom. You can pick that up as a student. If the teacher is excited about being in front of you, that goes a long way.”

Often accompanied in class by puppets, Dr. Meals was known to generations of PCOM students for his creative teaching style.

As told by Kenneth J. Veit, DO ’76, MBA, FACOFP, Provost, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Dean

WILLIAM GILHOOL, DO

I’ve been at the Lancaster Healthcare Center now for going on 19 years. When I first came, in 2003, Dr. Gilhool was one of the doctors here, and working with him was just such a pleasure. He is a great doctor, with a really good bedside manner. He’s been retired for three or four years, and the patients still want to know how he’s doing. … He was originally a gastroenterologist, and you don’t always see a specialist who is able to transition back to primary care. For him, it was a no-brainer. … Dr. Gilhool is very down to earth, very personable. He is probably the best storyteller I’ve ever met. Students would gather around and listen to him talk about his hospital days, his intern days, everything he’d seen when he was in practice. He can talk to anybody about anything. … He is a great teacher. He was very much into stopping and making sure students really understood the whole picture, the whole patient. The students loved it and got so much out of it. … Our offices were right across from each other. We got to know each other personally, and we could see each other’s patients without there being any lapse in care. … He relied on me for some things, like the newer technologies, and I relied on him in terms of his experience, the political ins and outs, that kind of thing. He would leave it to me to draw my own conclusions, because he always joked that I had a lot of guts and wasn’t easily intimidated. He was like that, too. He’d always say, ‘To thine own self be true.’… His father had been a prominent OB/GYN physician in North Philadelphia who early on had a stroke, and his mother, a nurse, had to take care of the father. So he had had some adversity in his childhood and didn’t go right into medicine. He went to medical school at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in Missouri, and when he first started working here, he probably felt a bit like an outsider. … Remembering his relationships with the students always reminds me to stop for a minute. We’re so

fast-paced here at the center and trying to do so much at once. Dr. Gilhool always took the time to get to know the students, to talk to them about their aspirations—not just in medicine but in the rest of their lives.” As told by Kristen Berry, DO ’00, Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine A master storyteller, Dr. Gilhool always took the time to get to know his students personally and professionally.

DAVID HEILIG, DO ’44, MsC (Ost.), FAAO

Dr. Heilig was my colleague and my mentor. But when I met him for the first time, I was in seventh grade in my T-shirt and tighty-whities, waiting to get my physical for football. Dr. Heilig told me to turn my head to the side and cough. … Basically, because of my father [Nicholas S. Nicholas, DO, FAAO], I grew up with him. He was a really important figure in our lives, kind of like a member of the family. But I could never call him Dave; it was ‘Dr. Dave’ or ‘Doc Dave.’ … I didn’t see him much while I was in medical school. But when my father was hired full-time to chair what’s now the OMM department, the first thing he did was hire Dr. Heilig as his vice chair. That was 1974. And in 1977, I joined the department full-time: it was my father, Dr. Heilig and me. … My father was a very social, extroverted guy—he was a volcano. And if Dr. Heilig had been like him, it wouldn’t have worked. They were opposites; they blended perfectly together. Dr. Heilig was a tectonic plate that moved very quietly. … He was one of the most intelligent, widely educated men I’ve ever met. He was a writer. He could paint and sculpt. He played the cello and bass violin. He was a football player and a diver on the swim team at Swarthmore College. … Dr. Heilig was probably the most deeply thinking osteopathic physician, as well as osteopathic manipulative medicine physician, teaching osteopathic principles and practice. … He was a gentleman and a gentle man—a Quaker, a very spiritual man. I never heard him say anything loud or nasty about anybody. He stood up for his beliefs very strongly, but he did it in a way that was kind and well-thought-out. … Dr. Heilig was what the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator would call an advocate. He helped everybody—he’d put his hands on the students’ hands and take them through the maneuvers. … My father used to say that Dr. Heilig was the greatest manipulative tactician he’d ever seen. And my father was pretty good. … When Dr. Heilig retired, I think that was the only time the American Academy of Osteopathy honored someone with an entire day of lectures, just on him. He was loved by the entire osteopathic profession.”

As told by Alexander S. Nicholas, DO ’75, FAAO dist., Professor and Chair, Department of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine

A true renaissance man and master manipulative tactician, Dr. Heilig was a deeply thinking osteopathic physician.

NICHOLAS C. PEDANO, DO ’61, FACOS

Nick Pedano was my guide and counselor—and also my cousin. My grandmother was a Pedano. … When I decided I wanted to go to PCOM, Nick wrote a letter for me. Later, when I had a little trouble with anatomy, Nick talked to his close friend Angus Cathie [then chair of the department]. … Nick wanted me to be a surgeon, even though I said, ‘Nick, I’m not good with my hands.’ … I remember one case, the second operation was 12 hours. I’m short, so I had to stand on a stool, and I said, ‘Maybe it’s better if I pass out.’ After it was over and we were taking the gloves off, I said, ‘Cuz, this is not for me.’ He said, ‘All right. You’re going to go into internal medicine.’ … Nick could order you to do something and you did it, and then— ‘Wait a minute, what am I doing?’ … The whole family had a commanding presence. Surgeons have to be commanding, and they have to give orders, but they get away with more if the iron fist has a velvet glove. … There were two parts of Nick’s personality. He was friendly, and he was bossy—but he had a nice way about him. … He had a house down the shore in Margate, right by the ocean, and he would have a party every year for the interns and for the residents, a beautiful affair. He would wine and dine them because he appreciated what they did for him. And he developed relationships all the way up the line. That was the social Nick. In the operating room, he took no hostages, because he had to get things done the way he wanted them done. … As chairman of surgery, Nick led the way to the growth of PCOM by example. He had a massive service, with tons of patients. He went all over the place to nurture family doctors. … The people who worked with him were indefatigable and inextinguishable. The College is to a large degree where it is because of his absolutely brilliant energy. … From Nick, I saw that leadership is not totally dictatorial or totally social. It’s a good mixture of both. So I try to achieve that balance with my house staff. Yes, we work hard. When it comes time for me to be the boss, they look at me as the boss. But then I’ll say, ‘Okay, it’s five o’clock, let’s go over to the Hilton.’ ”

With his commanding presence in and out of the OR, Dr. Pedano served as chief of surgery at PCOM from the late 1970s into the 1990s.

As told by Pat Lannutti, DO ’71, MSc, Professor and Chair, Division of General Internal Medicine

CHARLOTTE H. GREENE, PhD

Soon after I came to PCOM in 1989, I was asked to serve on a committee to revise the faculty handbook and develop a tenure policy. Charlotte Greene was the chair of the committee, which also included Michael Venditto, DO [now professor and chair, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine]. We had a big job to do. … Charlotte was very knowledgeable about the multiple roles of faculty in an academic environment. I enjoyed watching her pause for reflection, and if she didn’t have an immediate response, she’d dig for information and come back to the table with advice for us. She worked extremely hard in this task and in everything she did. … When Charlotte spoke, everybody listened. She was never pedantic and always kept an open mind for the opinions of others. … In her role as educator, Charlotte was responsible for teaching muscle physiology to our DO and MS students. I went to her lectures because this was my area of research. Her goal was to present this conceptually challenging material in a way that students would readily understand and would help them appreciate the relevance to the principles and practice of osteopathic medicine. She encouraged students to ask questions and made them feel that they had identified gaps in our knowledge. … Where Charlotte really shined was in her research laboratory. She was a terrific and imaginative scientist. Her favorite role was mentoring students in the research process, and they flocked to her lab to be a part of her projects. … She was a pioneer in research involving tissue regeneration. Charlotte’s work was recognized by a company that contracted with her to test compounds for their effects on wound healing in a model she developed. She also provided opportunities for surgeons to learn how to perform laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the early days of minimally invasive procedures. … Charlotte was always thoughtful and never boastful. Although she was passionate about all things academic, she could see both sides of an issue. She loved PCOM and stood behind the difficult decision to sell our hospital for the good of the

A pioneer in research involving tissue regeneration, Dr. Greene taught surgeons how to perform laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the early days of minimally invasive surgery. College. … I had so much respect for her as a colleague and an individual. I miss her a lot. She touched the lives of many of our students.” As told by Mindy George-Weinstein, PhD, Chief Research and Science Officer, PCOM

DANIEL L. WISELY, DO, FACOS, LLD (Hon.)

Daniel Wisely was a very special gentleman. He came into a profession that was often, and still sometimes is, stigmatized as being rude or blunt. But he was so open, sincere, caring. … Yes, you had to work hard. You had to always be at your best. You had to bring a hundred percent, all the time. But he also recognized the sacrifices of the profession to your personal life, to your family. … I can remember him walking around the hospital, and something might be a bit ajar, and he’d take a moment to help out housekeeping, or pause while a nurse was with a patient rather than come in with a bluster. …

When I was a resident in surgery, there weren’t that many of us, and you might be unable to get any time off. He’d say,

‘I’ll cover for you. I got this. You need to go home; you’ve been on for three weeks in a row.’… He was a consummate surgeon. I don’t think I ever saw him falter or sweat. He called himself a little country doctor, but his skills were just phenomenal. He had these big hands but such a subtle touch. … He was proud of all his residents and graduates, and of their successes over time. He had an ability to see not only people’s potential, but to take the next step of saying, ‘What can I do to help?’ … He wouldn’t let you in real close to him personally; he was a quiet and private man. But you knew he really cared. … He always made the time when the time was necessary. He just seemed to know. He had a great skillset of people understanding—listening, interpreting, getting to the bottom of something, not just reacting in a moment in time. Today, you can read all the books on management, but this was another era. How did he do it? … If I’m going into a difficult situation, whether to talk to a family about a loved one who is maybe going to pass, or to have a difficult conversation about something at work, I often think about the demeanor that he drew upon. And so it’s more than ‘What would Dan do?’—of course, we never would have called him Dan!—but ‘Without losing himself, how did he find the space to give everyone their due, their necessary attention? What was the essence?’ ”

As told by H. William Craver III, DO ’87, FACOS, Professor of Surgery; Dean and Chief Academic Officer, Osteopathic Medical Program, PCOM South Georgia

With big hands and a subtle touch, Dr. Wisely possessed supreme surgical skills for a self-described “little country doctor.”