Summer 2013 COM Outlook | NSU College of Osteopathic Medicine

42 COM Outlook . Spring 2013 Getting to Know… 1995 Alumnus Dr. Dan Carney Fast Facts: Dan C. Carney, D.O. , of Boynton Beach, Florida, is married to his high school sweetheart, Christine, and has four children: Dan Jr., who is a police officer in Boca Raton; Michael, who is pursuing career opportunities in physical therapy; Caitlin, a senior at NSU’s Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences who is studying athletic training; and Brian, who is a junior at Wingate University inNorth Carolina, where he is studying acting and communications. Please summarize how you became interested in medicine and decided to become a physician. I guess I was always interested in medicine. My father was a family practice physician, so when I was a young kid around 1960, I used to ask questions like, “What’s happening inmyhead when I have a headache?” and “Why, in the middle of the summer in Florida, do they call it a cold ?” I remember, like it was yesterday, answering a phone call at home at around 3:00 in the morning where a gentleman said hiswifewas very ill.My father took thephone and headed out the door. But this was the way it was back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The call would come in at any time after hours, and my father was on his way to another house call. He was one of the most respected men in town. My pa t h t o med i c i ne t ook a mo r e unconventional route than most. I had started in premed at theUniversity ofMiami (UM). Problem was, I was playing football at UM and chasing this wonderful lady. Something had to give. Naturally, the grades went where you might expect. I switched to a radio and television broadcasting and journalism course of study. Fortunately, everything worked out as my career in broadcasting took off. After working a few years in Miami at WIOD radio, then at Channel 4 behind the camera, I moved in front of the camera at Channel 6 as sports director. In 1980, I moved to Atlanta to help launch CNN as the network’s second of four original sportscasters. The year 1982 brought us to the Satellite News Channel, another 24-hour news network that went off the air after two years. I left broadcasting at that point and moved to Key West after buying the dog track there, but got back into TV in 1984 in Pensacola at another startup station. In the late 1980s, I went back to school to take all my science prerequisites, sit for the MCAT exams, and hopefully realize something I had only dreamed about decades earlier— becoming a physician. I guess I scored well enough to allow me to join the class of 1995. We stayed in Pensacola until 1991, which is when we moved back to South Florida so I could begin my education at Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine. It was the best thing I’ve ever done professionally. Oh, and that girl I was chasing at UM? We celebrated our 35 th anniversary on June 10, 2013. Why did you decide to attend SECOM (NSU-COM), and how did you come to learn about osteopathic medicine? My father, Thomas F. Carney, D.O., was a graduate of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1951. He was one of the earliest osteopathic physicians in South Florida, moving here in 1954. He was part of the group that helped in the birth of SECOM. My younger brother was born at Osteopathic General Hospital in 1962, the building that would become part of the medical school. Where else would I go? What was the most memorable aspect of your osteopathic education at SECOM (NSU-COM)? I think the most memorable aspects of medical school were the third- and fourth-year rotations. We used to say—and I guess students still do— that the worst day on rotations was better than the best day sitting in classes because we were actually involved in medicine and/ or procedures. It gave exposure to where you might be as an attending, and going with physical medicine and rehabilitation brought me to some of themore renowned rehab facilities to rotate. Please describe in detail what you are doing professionally at the moment and why you enjoy it. After finishing my residency at Boston University Medical School and Boston Medical Center, I received my board certification in physical medicine and rehabilitation and subspecialty certification in spinal-cord injury medicine. I stayed on staff there, gaining an assistant professorship. In 2003, after four years as an attending physician, we moved back to South Florida, where I accepted the medical director’s position at St. Anthony’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, which is where I still am today. This was a coming home in every sense of the word. My wife and I are both natives of the area, as are our families and so many of the friends with whom we grew up. What has been the most fulfilling aspect of being a physician? From my perspective, I feel the greatest thing one can do is to make a difference in another person’s life. There’s a lot of trust placed by patients in their physicians. That’s a lot of responsibility, which has to be taken seriously. I am strictly hospital-based at St. Anthony’s. I don’t have an outpatient practice and prefer to keep it that way. It allowsme to spend asmuch time as I need in apatient’s roomas is necessary, notworrying about needing to rush to anoutpatient clinic. Reversing medical misfortune and getting a patient home or to the next level gives me the greatest satisfaction.