01/17/2024    Luke Cicchinelli, DPM

On the Legacy of Dr. Ganley and the passing of Gary Bauer and Steve Corey

Do you remember your very first time? I’m referring
to the ocean of difference between ephemeral
pleasure and enduring gratitude. One was the first
to tie the fundamental basis and importance of
anatomy to all clinical situations at foot and
regaled myself and classmates at PCPM in the late
‘80s with the Gary Bauer “Power Hours”. Brilliant!
Nonstop, case after case, never repeating the same
x-rays, knowledge layered with experience crowned
by the desire to share it all. We sat mesmerized.
We started to “get it”.

Another taught me the application of clinical
knowledge in the real life setting of private
practice and how to serve patients and community
while earning a living to support your family. Dr.
Ganley responded to my typewritten snail mail
letter in May of 1989 and accepted me sight unseen
for my very first clinical rotation outside the
comfort of the nest of school and friends. One day
he commented “be aware - you’ll miss gout” and 25
years later I was chastised by an ID doc for not
being aggressive enough and should take an in-
patient with a red hot swollen 4th tarsometatarsal
joint to surgery. Now his opinion was in the
record. Cultures were negative. No pus. Path
report: monosodium urate crystals. I hadn’t.

The 3rd was the first, in the 11th month of the
first year of my residency in Tucker, GA, to pass
me the #15 blade. In those days we spent almost the
entire 1st year learning to be scrub techs and
assistants. It served us very well. When Steve said
“this is your case” I was nudged across a threshold
of responsibility and privilege, obligation and
commitment. That expression of confidence in me,
and even more so of himself as the surgeon of
record, launched a career and a perspective. Who
first passed us each the blade?

All 3, so very different in personality and
temperament, were similar. Intellect, a sense of
humor and teachers. All 3 equally influential in
distinct ways. They inspired. In the truest Latin
root sense of the word. Inspiratus. “to breathe
into”. To demonstrate by their actions that they
believed in us. The onus now squarely in our court
to study, learn, share and gradually believe in
ourselves and then others. A deep breath – an
inner monologue – if he/she thinks we’ve “got this”
-- then maybe we do.

Here’s the rub. The epilogues go unread and the
eulogies unheard. Not by the family and friends to
be sure, but by those that we admired and are
grateful to. “in Lieu of Flowers….”, that one last
familial effort to register an impact in honor of
our deceased loved ones. Death is indisputably an
affair for those that remain. Are we saying enough
Thank You’s along the way? Flowers are best
appreciated as living extensions of Nature in the
seasons of their bloom.

Our educations, personal growth and profession’s
viability is not the journey nor the destination,
it’s the Who we’ve traveled with. That sense of
communion on the Camino. Better to Say, and by
action To Be, the Thank You now to those who push
us on our way. Always pay that trip forward. In a
world where you can be anything - Be Kind. Honesty
is always nice as well. Share everything that has
ever been shared. Gratitude to our teachers is to
show them the ripples from where the pebble landed
in the lake.

Be aware - Do not defer. As our Spanish colleagues
know and live so well - Hoy es hoy, manana quizas.
Today is today, tomorrow maybe.

Luke Cicchinelli, DPM, Philadelphia, PA,

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