Dr. Michael Carroll, an ophthalmologist who built a thriving practice, was known for going the extra mile for patients as well as his own staff.
Dr. Carroll, 86, died of heart failure Wednesday, Sept. 12, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, his family said. He had lived in the Beverly area for more than 30 years.
Dr. Carroll, whose father was a Chicago police officer, grew up in St. Maurice Parish in the Brighton Park neighborhood. He graduated from De La Salle Institute and earned a scholarship to play basketball at DePaul University but instead served two years in the Navy.
Returning to Chicago, he chose to forgo his athletic scholarship and study medicine at DePaul, completing his degree in three years. He went on to medical school at Loyola University and graduated in 1953.
After four years as a resident in Milwaukee, Dr. Carroll moved back to Chicago and married. He joined the staff of Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park and spent time in a joint practice before starting his own clinic near 95th Street and Cicero Avenue in Oak Lawn.
Dr. Carroll created a family atmosphere at his practice, employing his children and providing free care for employees and their relatives. Former nurse Maureen Nitsche was on his staff for 39 years.
"I went for a year and I stayed forever," Nitsche said.
Because of Dr. Carroll's popularity and reputation, there was a three-to-four-month backlog for appointments. In need of another doctor to handle the overflow, he called around and found a young resident and fellow South Sider, John Hanlon, who was working at a Veterans Affairs hospital in the western suburbs.
Hanlon couldn't afford to rent office space for a practice near Dr. Carroll's on his salary at the time, and he had no assets to secure a loan. So Dr. Carroll offered to pay $12,000 for six months' rent and co-signed for a $90,000 line of credit for Hanlon.
He had "a ton of integrity," Hanlon said.
In 2003, Dr. Carroll was approached by one of his nurses after she became suspicious after receiving a phone call from a credit card company inquiring about Lucille Zicker, an 88-year-old retiree who had headed an optometry section of Dr. Carroll's practice.
Suspecting Zicker was being cheated out of her home and savings by an unscrupulous relative, Dr. Carroll recruited his daughter Gwen Carroll Rigney, a lawyer, and launched an investigation that ultimately kept Zicker from being erroneously declared legally incompetent and helped her get into an assisted living facility.
His staff provided care for Zicker once she regained ownership of her home, and she eventually received a federal judgment of nearly $400,000 in her favor, Rigney said.
"She had been there for him, and they were all there for her," his daughter said.
Dr. Carroll was always accessible to those in need, colleagues said. Mike Milovic was a college student home for winter break when he was unable to remove a contact lens from behind his eyelid on Christmas morning. His father feverishly called local physicians, finally getting in touch with Dr. Carroll, who told him to bring his son over to his house in Beverly.
As his children opened presents and played with their toys, Dr. Carroll stood in the foyer of his home and removed the lens from Milovic's eye.
"He rolled my eyelid and just handed me the contact," Milovic said. "It took seconds."
Milovic was later on hand for one of Dr. Carroll's proudest achievements — a hole in one at Big Run Golf Club in Lockport.
"He hit a terrible shot," Milovic said. "It looked like he was hitting it into the water, and he ended up with a hole in one."
Golf was one of Dr. Carroll's prime passions.
"The reason he didn't want to have a wake was because he didn't want anybody to miss a tee time," Hanlon said with a laugh.
Dr. Carroll's other survivors include his wife of 59 years, Mary; a son, Michael Patrick; daughters Anne Phillips, Mary Hayes and Cathleen Yopchick; a sister, Isabelle Calabrese; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren
Services were held.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario