To most people, a visit to the foot doctor is about as riveting as waiting in a slow line to check baggage at the airport.
Fortunately, there are exceptions to every rule. In this case, it’s Dr. Lowell Scott Weil, a Highland Park and Des Plaines podiatrist to the stars who also treats average Joes and Josephines as if they were celebrities.
Weil is the team podiatrist for the Bears and White Sox and a podiatry consultant for the Bulls. A visit to his Des Plaines office, provided you’re not suffering from an extremely painful condition, is more of an experience than a chore. In terms of comfort, it’s the difference between a tax refund and a tax audit.
You’re greeted by a luxurious two-story, skylit waiting room that looks more like a lounge than a doctor’s office. Then you notice a wall adorned with photos autographed by Chicago celebrities that rivals any sports bar in the city.
Of course, there’s always the chance you could bump into someone like Bears quarterback Jim Harbaugh or Bears legend Walter Payton.
“I do everything uniquely, and I do whatever I want to do,” said Weil, a 51-year-old Glenview resident. “I wanted to make it an atmosphere and give a modernistic approach to it. I wanted people to come in and say, `Wow, this really looks neat.’ “
The packaging is one thing; the man is another.
“Lowell is one of the most well respected doctors in his field in the country,” said Dr. Vincent Perns, past president of the Illinois Podiatric Medical Association and a former classmate of Weil’s.
“He’s well read, well trained and well versed. With him, it’s certainly the whole package.”
And there are other accolades stemming from Weil’s podiatric inventions and innovative procedures. In 1985, for example, the Pennsylvania Podiatry Association cited Weil as one of five podiatrists in the U.S. who most influenced the science of foot surgery in the previous decade. And in 1992, Weil was named Podiatrist of the Year by Podiatry Management Magazine.
The field of medicine has drawn Weil since he was a teenager. While his friends were reading comic books, he’d enthusiastically devour every article he could find about medicine.
Weil turned that fascination into a career. He did his undergraduate studies at Tulane University in New Orleans and received his Doctor of Podiatric Medicine degree from the Illinois College of Podiatric Medicine in Chicago, which is now part of the School College of Podiatric Medicine. After completing his postgraduate training in reconstructive foot surgery at the nationally renowned Civic Foot Hospital in Detroit, he entered private practice in Des Plaines in 1965.
Weil began treating professional athletes a few years later after someone who had played briefly for the Bears brought his daughter in for an appointment.
He later met legendary Bear owner George Halas and the two men hit it off. Weil eventually became team podiatrist in 1976, and his sports practice blossomed from there to include the Bulls in 1983 and the White Sox two years later. Treating prominent athletes rapidly developed into a labor of love for this sports nut, who counts White Sox and Bulls season tickets among his most prized possessions. Weil’s most famous celebrity patients have included Payton, Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson.
With the pro athletes, Weil treats all foot problems from in-grown toenails to reconstructive surgery. He has operated on Don-nell Woolford and Keith Van Horne of the Bears and Ozzie Guillen of the White Sox.
“He’s real good. He took my headaches away,” says Guillen. “I had ingrown toenails real bad-so bad they used to give me headaches all the time. He helped me and he’s fun to be around. You know, you go see a doctor and you’re always nervous. But not with him. He makes you feel good.”
Although the teams pay to send their athletes to him, Weil’s first obligation is strictly to his patient.
“My responsibility is to the athlete, not the team,” said Weil, who works out of Highland Park Hospital and his office in Des Plaines. “My obligation to the professional athlete is to do anything possible to get that player back on the court or on the field but at the same time do it with the safety of the player in mind and with his full understanding of what the possible risks and ramifications are.”
After Payton broke a toe in a 1986 game, his streak of consecu-tive games started was in jeop-ardy. Payton pleaded with Weil to fly to Tampa to personally ad-minister a painkilling shot immediately before the Bears’ game against the Buccaneers. It seems Payton, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, is afraid of needles.
Weil juggled his schedule, jumped on a plane to Tampa from Philadelphia, where he was lecturing at a forum, and honored Payton’s wishes-using a thinner-than-usual needle. After scoring a touchdown on a spectacular run early in the game, Payton approached Weil on the sidelines and gave him a wink and a playful yet powerful punch in the gut.
“That was Walter’s way of thanking me,” Weil said proudly.
You’d assume that poking and prodding some of Chicago’s most famous feet would draw more new patients to Weil’s practice. Surprisingly, that’s not always true. Many who suffer from foot maladies are apprehensive about being treated by the same doctor who works on some of the most well-conditioned athletes in the world.
“Sometimes I think it has a negative effect,” Weil said. “I may have a 45-year-old lady come in with a bad bunion deformity-and reconstructive bunion surgery is my expertise. She’ll say, `You know, I’m not an athlete, and I don’t know anything about sports, but I have this problem.’
“I point out to everyone that their problem is just as important to me as Bo Jackson, Walter Payton or anybody else. It may seem minor to you, but believe me, it’s major to me.
“I take just as much pride in every average patient who walks in as I do with athletes.”
Jeannine Giesen of Lake Forest experienced that first-hand. After a 1990 surgery by another doctor failed to cure two bunions and a condition that badly tangled her toes, Giesen sought out Weil last January.
“It was a desperate situation,” Giesen said. “He told me he’d never seen someone’s feet in as bad a shape as mine. He made me no promises, but he said he’d try to help.”
Giesen had surgery on both feet Jan. 18. In three weeks she was walking without pain. After her surgery three years ago she had been confined to a wheelchair for three months and hadn’t started walking for six months.
“I’m walking 18 holes of golf with no pain at all,” Giesen said. “Dr. Weil rebuilt my feet. He’s absolutely wonderful. What I had to go through three years ago was terrible. I think Dr. Weil is the finest in the world, and I couldn’t recommend him more highly. I wouldn’t be walking if it wasn’t for Dr. Weil.”
Members of his staff agree with Giesen’s assessment. “He’s the best in his profession,” said Verna Haman, Weil’s director of patient relations. “He’s demanding, but he’s also a very compassionate and caring bedside type of doctor, and the patients really appreciate that.”
Christine Tullio of Lake Forest is another patient who has never dunked a basketball or hit a home run in a big league ballpark. But that mattered little when a bone in her foot was misaligned, causing excruciating pain.
Weil repaired the bone April 14 by shortening it and lining it up.
“I’ve talked to a number of people who’ve had the same thing done by other doctors, and they were totally incapacitated,” Tullio said. “I wasn’t at all. I was very pleased with the results.
“Dr. Weil does things to make everything more comfortable for you. He used stitches that dissolved and wrapped a silk bandage around my foot so it wouldn’t hurt when they yanked the regular bandage off. Those may seem like little things, but they’re not to me.”
Weil grew up in Skokie and attended St. John’s Military School in Wisconsin before heading to Tulane. He and wife Nancy have been married for 28 years and have two children: Lowell Jr., 25, and Andrea, 22.
Lowell Jr. is scheduled to graduate from the Dr. William Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine in Chicago next May. He and fiance Wendy Benton, also a Scholl student, plan to join his father’s practice in three years after completing their residencies. The two will marry next June.
Andrea teaches French to underprivileged 5th and 6th graders in Louisiana. Both Lowell Jr. and Andrea followed in their father’s footsteps by attending Tulane.
Weil met Nancy at a wedding in her native Dallas and proposed six weeks later. He admits it was an uncharacteristically quick move for a man who normally plots out his decisions and takes few risks.
“I’m an extroverted person, but I’m a careful thinker,” he said. “I’m conservative in my attitudes, both politically and investment-wise. I don’t take any big risks in life. I just enjoy life and I enjoy being around people.”
That same approach can be found in his professional life. Weil is an expert surgeon who will operate only as a last resort. He said he is much more conservative than many other podiatrists and will painstakingly seek out alternative treatment rather than jumping into his surgical scrubs and asking questions later.
It’s a philosophy that’s respected and admired by patients. “If I can cure something without surgery, then I think that’s great,” he said. “People feel good about that.”
In 1985, Michelle Gormish was one of the unfortunate ones who required surgery. But she was so impressed with Weil that she joined his office as a receptionist shortly afterward. She moved into her current position of office manager a year later.
Gormish was a professional dancer with Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance Company who needed reconstructive surgery to repair a broken bone in her foot.
“Dr. Weil is very innovative and always willing to listen to new ideas and options,” Gormish said. “His patients think very highly of him. I’ve really not heard any negative responses in terms of the care he provides.”
“He’s sincere, he’s sensitive, and he has a genuine concern for his patients,” added Nancy Weil, a computer specialist who works part time in her husband’s office. “He’s truly concerned about his patients and the best treatment for them.”
Weil originally specialized in podiatry because he was fascinated with the field and excited about its great diversification. Since he began practicing, that captivation has grown.
“The profession has changed tremendously,” he said. “Foot doctors used to cut corns and calluses and make arch supports. Now, especially in sports medicine with the running craze, podiatrists have really made a great impact, being able to be total physicians of the foot and ankle.”
Weil has been responsible for a significant part of that impact. He has invented medical devices and surgical procedures that are being used throughout the world.
One of Weil’s inventions is a tiny silicon rubber pin used as an artificial toe joint to increase flexibility. A surgical technique he created involving the use of special screws allows patients to walk immediately after bunion surgery without the aid of crutches.
He said his ability to invent new procedures and devices is the result of being mechanically oriented.
“I’ve always been mechanical in nature, so I can see something and figure out a better way to do it,” he said. “I’ve always said that you could make a great surgeon out of a carpenter. He just wouldn’t know what to do if something went wrong. They have great perspectives on angular relationships and geometry.
“In the house, I can fix anything there is to fix, everything from electrical work to minor carpentry to plumbing-the whole works.”
In case you were wondering, Weil will never earn extra money as a weekend plumber. The time away from his practice is already loaded with myriad obligations. He is president of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons and travels to Washington every other week in that capacity.
He also serves as adjunct clinical professor of Podiatric Surgery and Orthopedics at the Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine. Additionally, he is a noted medical author and international lecturer, having presented scientific papers in 41 states and 12 foreign countries.
Weil spoke in India last November and Spain a couple of months ago and will travel to South Korea to present a scientific paper at the World Orthopedic Conference this month.
Any praise Weil receives from colleagues is nice, but it doesn’t match the feeling he gets when he’s thanked by a patient.
That can take several forms. Consider that on June 22, before 40,000 fans at Comiskey Park, former Sox catcher Carlton Fisk was speaking during festivities honoring his illustrious career and included Weil’s name in a list of those who’ve helped him remain on his feet.
And then there are the homemade treats and postcards from other thankful patients is just as rewarding to Weil as being publicly thanked by a sports star.
“There’s great satisfaction in being able to help someone do what they want to do in life,” Weil said. “It’s very rewarding when I receive a pan of cookies or a letter from someone I’ve helped. To take somebody with a terribly crippled-up foot and do reconstructive surgery on them and then see them walk away from it is very, very satisfying.”
Even surgeons with the most exemplary records don’t bat a thousand. That’s a lesson Weil learned early in his career.
“The humbling experiences come when you get a problem or complication with a patient or a result that doesn’t turn out as good as you wanted it to,” Weil said. “That’s always discouraging. As hard as you try and as smart as you think you are, there’s always nature and somebody else out there who’s going to make the final decision as to what the result is going to be.
“It’s very difficult early in your career when that happens. I remember the first time I had an infection on a case. I couldn’t sleep for three days and I constantly worried about it.
“But you get hardened by it. The older you get, you learn you can’t be perfect in everything you do. (The main this is to be able to) look in the mirror and say, `I did the best possible job I could. I know what I was doing is what I’d do to a member of my own family.’
“That’s all you can do and hope for the best out of it. That’s what keeps my motivation going.”
