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Anne Arundel County's Top Docs
Story and Photos By Wendi Winters
Selecting the doctor who is right for you is a personal decision, but getting input from people in the community you respect is an important component of the decision making process. We therefore asked all the physicians associated with our county's two hospitals, Anne Arundel Medical Center and Baltimore Washington Medical Center (formerly North Arundel General Hospital) this question: "If you or a loved one needed to see a medical or surgical specialist in the area, whom would you choose?"
Each survey was mailed individually, with a self-addressed-stamped-envelope, to ensure that we got only one response per physician.
The response to our 1500-doctor survey was remarkable. We commend all the area physicians who took time out of their busy schedules to fill out our survey and mail it back to us. What we are publishing on the following pages are the results of our doctor survey.
Please note many fine physicians who are new to the community or who are affiliated with other medical institutions may not be on this list.
The highest numbers of responses we received were in the specialty categories. Mainstream practices such as general practitioner, internal medicine, and Ob-Gyn received far fewer responses than categories such as infectious diseases. As one of the "Top Docs" explained, "Doctors are notorious for treating themselves," which explains the higher response rate in the specialty categories.
Choosing a doctor should be a multi-step process; to help you make a thoughtful decision we are publishing not one but two stories on that subject. The Top Docs list should only be used as a resource in helping you make informed decisions. If you are happy with your current doctors, maintain your relationships.
"If you do good work," Dr. Lyle Modlin, a podiatrist, observes, "people find out. If you do bad work, it's a small town and word travels fast."
The doctors profiled in this article are a diverse and interesting group, but they all have one thing in common: they are highly respected by their peers. Doctors and medical professionals trust their own care and that of their family members to these dedicated healers.
That's the highest vote of confidence a doctor in any specialty can receive.
During their interviews, several doctors bluntly voiced opinions about health or lifestyle trends they've tracked. Their honesty was both palpable and unvarnished.
"The majority of Americans-65%-have voted to be obese," said neurosurgeon Dr. Thomas Ducker. "22% smoke, 3 to 4% abuse alcohol, 70% don't exercise. Yet they want us to fix everything with a pill or an operation."
Gastroenterologist Dr. Suzanne Sankey concurred: "We work the longest hours of any country, take fewer vacations days, we overeat and don't exercise. And, I'm just as guilty."
Thomas Ducker
Neurosurgeon
Maryland Brain and Spine
"Say it with flowers" was the slogan of a florists' group years ago. A bouquet of flowers got Dr. Thomas Ducker into medical school after the institution's deadline for applications had passed.
Raised in Huntington, West Virginia, Dr. Ducker grew up with an older brother born with cerebral palsy. The brother was not expected to live 3 years. At 75, he's a resident in a senior home. He earned a degree at Marshall University and worked full time for a quarter century before retiring. His tenacious refusal to surrender despite overwhelming odds had a powerful impact on his younger brother.
The doctor spent his junior year at University of Virginia as an exchange student at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. When he returned, he was informed that he was too late to apply to UVA's medical school. He marched across the street to a florist's shop and purchased an armload of flowers. He marched back and demanded "a fair shake" from the placement officials. He got it.
During Dr. Ducker's residency at the University of Michigan, he saw successful neurosurgery for the first time. "Neurosurgery has evolved over the 40 years I've been involved. We can do two to three times what we did, in less time. We can do remarkable stuff. The question is-how far can you carry any treatment?"
He mentions the dilemma facing many doctors involved in life-or-death issues: "Today, we're dealing with ethical questions where there's not necessarily one answer. I just try to give my patients-and their families-the facts."
He's lived in several places over his years as a doctor, professor, and neurosurgery department head.
Most recently, he downsized from a sprawling, waterfront home on Ulmstead Point overlooking the Magothy River to a residence in downtown Annapolis. The family also owns a getaway chalet in Steamboat, Colorado, and visits eight or more times a year. There he and Barbara, his wife of 40 years, their three children-Lakin, 38; Scott, 37; and Suzanne, 31-and three grandchildren gather for family holidays and skiing vacations.
Because he's been known for years as a boating enthusiast, people still ask where his boat is.
"Boat?" he retorts, then jabs his finger on a photo of the snow-covered Colorado home. "Steamboat! That's our boat!"
John M. Martin
Vasculart and General Surgeon
Cardiology Associates
"It's crazy. I love what I do for a living. It's not work, it's what I do. It doesn't feel like work, because I'm surrounded by people who do this for all the right reasons."
"I eat, sleep, and drink this."
Dr. Martin, director of the Vascular Institute at Anne Arundel Medical Center and a partner in Cardiology Associates, says that with a broad smile and exudes boyish charm, vastly more believable than Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch.
In his office on a recent Friday, he was in a decidedly "casual Friday" mode and gently shrugging off attempts by a staffer to pretty him up with a white lab coat. "I'm not big on uniforms, and casual clothes make people feel more at ease," he stated. "The work we do speaks volumes, as opposed to how we dress."
In addition to their regular responsibilities, Louise Hanson, a registered nurse practitioner, and Dr. Martin launched Dare to C.A.R.E., a free communitywide vascular disease screening program, in 2000.
C.A.R.E. stands for carotid artery disease, abdominal aortic aneurysms, renal artery stenosis, extremity artery stenosis.
The program is staffed by two paid employees and numerous volunteers and is fueled by donations from individuals, small businesses, health care providers, and insurance companies. In 5 years it has tested 10,000 people, nearly 20% of the seniors in this area.
More than 168 aneurisms have been detected. And, he feels, among doctors and residents of all ages, awareness of the importance of cardiac health is increasing in the county. The program has also provided a model for hospitals and medical centers across the country.
Dr. Martin maintains an apartment within walking distance of his office and spends his weekends at home in Potomac. His wife, Lisa, is a stay-at-home parent to Ashley, 12, and Alexandra, 10.
He once asked daughter Ashley to donate something to Dare To C.A.R.E. "I already give to that foundation," she said quietly. "I give them you."
Mary Lynn Michaels
Rheumatologist
Annapolis Rheumatology Associates
Dr. Michaels warms up a room just by entering it. The buoyancy of her personality makes her seem decades younger than she is.
A native of Rocky River, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, she became interested in medicine because it's what she saw all the significant adults in her life doing. Her father and his father were doctors. And her mother was a nurse. She also loved reading Sherlock Holmes as a child. His methodical, science-based techniques for solving mysteries fascinated her.
"Medicine is an outgrowth of that-solving mysteries," she said.
In medical school her fascination with adult medicine outpaced the top-gun allure of surgery. "Internal medicine really is all about diagnosing and treating problems over a person's lifetime," she said.
The doctor received both her undergrad and doctorate degrees from Ohio State University and completed her residency training at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. During her stint at Duke, she gradually gravitated to rheumatology. "It's basic science and involves treating things that can either be cured quickly or it becomes more of a mission to puzzle out what's wrong. There are 150 different kinds of inflammatory arthritis.
"The payoff down the road in rhematology, in preventing pain and deformity, is you can then prevent more personal and work costs. If I can help someone who is suffering daily pain, I can make an impact, make them functional."
Growing up near Lake Erie, she often spent time either water-skiing on the lake or riding horses. When she moved to Annapolis, she eventually "traded the horses for a family."
Her husband, Michael, a former theater and cinema professor at Hollins and Dennison Colleges, now owns the Third Millennium Designs Gallery on West Street. Their son, Tristan, nearly 7, is a Key School student.
Like her hero Sherlock Holmes, she has an artistic side. Her artworks feature "nonrepresentational forms and colors." She's also collected a few thought-provoking pieces from Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum.
David William McDermott
Urologist
Private Practice
Urologist David McDermott is no couch potato. That would be a disservice to his patients. He keeps active with Pilates and golf. Pilates stretches his body and gives him strength, golf stretches his mind and social skills.
"I'm a certified golf nut," he admits. A resident of the Saefern community, he plays on the Naval Academy golf course. It's sort of like treading in enemy territory: The son of a West Point graduate, he was born at Walter Reed Hospital and is, himself, a West Pointer and a retired officer.
He planned to focus on business, and earned an MBA at the University of Santa Clara. However, he made friends in grad school who were in medicine. With the Air Force willing to invest further in his education, he headed off to the University of Texas Medical School.
"I wanted to be a surgeon," he recounted. "And most urologists are pretty easygoing, less uptight. They're people I felt comfortable with."
He described his busy practice as "not glamour work, but very important. It's not an impotence practice. I deal with diseases that impact your health."
"Male impotence is overblown. It's 5-10% of this practice. We deal with illnesses that people aren't telling their friends about. 50% of the cases are urinary infections. 20% of what we see is kidney stones-it's the most extraordinary pain. I see brand-new babies-I just did a circumcision! Pregnant women, men with prostate cancer, pelvic reconstruction-I like caring for people."
He is generous in crediting the other members and staff in his practice: "They're from the top training programs."
His practice sees 150 new patients a week. But he's concerned for the future of his specialty. "It takes 6 years to produce a urologist out of medical school," he said. "Only 200 a year are produced."
He and Molly, his wife of 35 years, are proud of their four grown children and two grandsons. Though none of their children carried on the family tradition of attending West Point, David Jr., 26, is a medical student at the University of Texas.
Angela R. Peterman
Dermatology
Anne Arundel Dermatology
Dr. Peterman is a good advertisement for her practice. Her skin is clear, devoid of makeup or sleight of hand. She grew up in Cambridge, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore, and gravitated to Annapolis because it "has a small-town flavor. It's close to cities, friends, and home."
"I'm not a city girl," she laughs.
She left the state to attend Wake Forest University for her undergraduate and medical degrees and completed an internal medicine residency at University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
She "got the razzle-dazzle medicine out of my system" with a community medical internship in a small-town practice in Wilson, North Carolina, with a "woman who walked home for lunch, had patients of all ages, and did a little surgery, a little medicine, a nice variety of things."
With a smile, she blames style icon Coco Chanel for today's sun-worshiping culture. "Everyone before her covered up." Now the field of dermatology is exploding with baby boomers damaged from decades of sunbathing.
Though the practice is moving into cosmetic dermatology, she prefers to deal with the more serious issues. "I spend time with my patients. I enjoy them. People make the job. I've been doing this for 20 years. I see people on a regular basis who I know from the community because our children were born together."
With husband Ed, retired from the Army, now a consultant and futurist, she has two children, 14-year old Joshua and Caroline, 12, both at Indian Creek School. The family lives in Eastport.
"If people have issues," the doctor advises, "they should have a full-body check yearly starting at age 30. The goal is to educate patients to spot things before they become serious. More and more people are coming in for a baseline checkup and I teach them what to look for. Generally, melanomas are most often found on the backs of men and, on women, on their backs and legs. Nonmelanomas can be anywhere, but most often in sun-related areas."
Her job has room for laughs, too. "When Retin-A burst on the scene, a wrinkly 85-year old woman came in. She wanted her husband to have the treatments."
Lyle T. Modlin
Podiatrist
Private Practice
Dr. Lyle Modlin treats people from all 'walks" of life. "Whether they are 6 weeks old or 95 years old, CEOs or indigent patients, I treat them like family.
"In Washington, you can do bad work and get lost. If you do bad work in Annapolis, it's a small town and word travels fast."
Making sure patients can do fancy footwork is part of his DNA: his father and an uncle were both podiatrists.
"The thing that makes medicine neat is the people. I love solving a problem and treating it," he grins. "I love the interaction with the other people in the office and the patients who come here."
A lifelong resident of Maryland, he, and his wife, Jo Ann, a commercial real estate agent, have three children: Amy, 20, at Drexel; Adam, 17, attending the University of Pittsburgh; and 13-year old Sara at Severn School. The family lives in Annapolis.
He sees a lot of foot problems that could have been prevented. Boat shoes provide no support and some wearers suffer painful fallen arches as a result. "Statement" sneakers, like Pumas, which he considers a "beautiful, neat-looking shoe hot among college and high school students," are just plain bad for feet.
His practice is known, he says, for the people who limp in and walk out. He enjoys his new location on the ground floor of a strip mall building at the convergence of Chinquapin Round Road and Forest Drive. "The parking is good and it's easy for people from Annapolis, Bowie, and the Eastern Shore to get here."
He's also a fine semiprofessional photographer. He's traveled the world to take photos. Landscapes, landmarks, still-lifes and portraits are all subjects for his lens. He shoots with a Nikon N70 and does his own developing, printing, framing, and dry mounting.
To the delight of his patients, Dr. Modlin has turned his suite of offices into an art gallery: his black-and-white and color photographs adorn every wall.
Edward J. Morris
Obstetrician/Gynecologist
Private Practice
Edward J. Morris' father, a WWII Navy doctor at Okinawa Hospital, cast a long shadow. He tried to convince his three sons to attend the Naval Academy. None did, but his two younger sons are now Ob/Gyns in the same practice, and the oldest is a Baltimore cardiologist. Complicating things just a bit, Dr. Morris' partner is Dr. E. Joseph Morris.
Wife Mary is the office manager of the bustling practice, consisting of Drl Morris and his brothers twelve staffers, and two nurse practitioners.
"The entire family is in the medical field," he laughs. "It makes Thanksgiving fun. We find other things to talk about than medicine."
One thing Dr. Morris talks about is his years as a recreational league lacrosse coach. His four children-Ryan, 27, a banker in New York City; Craig, 25, a landscape architect in Ocean City; Blake, 24, a Silver Spring banker; and Erin, 21, at Davidson College, have all played lacrosse. Most recently, he watched from the sidelines as Erin played Division 1 games all over the country.
He's also what he calls "a frustrated farmer."
Celebrating his 25th year in a practice that cares for women from their early teens through their senior years, he observes that he's delivered "thousands of babies, including dozens of in vitro babies."
"I love people and wanted to be in a happy, positive specialty," he says, explaining his choice. "I'd rather tell people they just had a beautiful baby than their father just had a stroke. I get to share a little part of people's lives with them. 99% of the time, it's a good part."
The downside, he feels, is that the number of new doctors attracted to his specialty has declined dramatically, as many are unnerved by high malpractice insurance costs and other factors. "University of Maryland only had one person specialize in Ob/Gyn last year and Johns Hopkins had none. You can't reach on a shelf and get an Ob/Gyn-it takes 8 years of medical school."
He notes proudly, "The OB section of Anne Arundel Medical Center (where he delivers) was voted one of the top 50 in the U.S. Out of thousands of U.S. hospitals, the entire hospital was among the top 100."
EJ. Michael Pardo
Otolarynogology
Annapolis Ear, Nose & Throat & Allergy Associates
Dr. Pardo has the bleary-eyed look of a new father. His wife, Roberta, a Brazilian professional horse dressage trainer, recently gave birth to their son Lucas. Daughter Gabriella is 2 years old. Plus, the family is in the middle of moving from their townhouse in the Riva Trace community in Annapolis to a home in Severna Park.
Riva Trace won't be Pardo-less. His parents and other family members have homes throughout the community.
Being an otolaryngologist is something Dr. Pardo has wanted to do since high school. He never felt influenced by his father, Dr. Juan M. Pardo, or his grandfather, who was a general surgeon in pre-Castro Cuba.
He is comfortable working in the same practice as his well-respected dad. "I was a math major in college. But when I got to medical school, it was a right fit. My dad and I have a great father-son relationship. It's a great experience and wonderful time. It was the right decision to come back to Annapolis after my training was complete."
They've been working together for 5 years.
A graduate of St. Mary's Elementary and High Schools in downtown Annapolis, he completed his medical degree and residency at the University of Maryland.
He and Roberta, a beauty from São Paulo, met at McGarvey's. She was visiting Maryland to work with an Olympic dressage trainer.
Having children of his own hasn't changed his attitude toward his younger patients. "But I can empathize with their parents more than I did," he observes.
Since his wife speaks six languages fluently, he's trying to learn one more. In their household, they speak Portuguese in an effort to raise bilingual children.
For fun, the family decamps to Europe, the West Coast, or Brazil a couple times a year. "We like to go in the off season, sometimes the dead of winter, and act like a local. We avoid the crowds."
Suzanne Sankey
Gastroenterologist
Anne Arundel Gastroenterology Associates
There's a perk that comes with being a gastroenterologist that Dr. Sankey enjoys, but would be willing to give up. At conferences for doctors in her specialty, she's one of the few women present. So she gets to experience what few women do at a crowded event-short lines in the ladies' room.
On a daily basis, she sees people with irritable or inflammatory bowels and handles colorectal cancer screenings. That's the procedure Today Show anchor Katie Couric underwent as the cameras rolled, shortly after her husband passed away from preventable colon cancer. If the polyps in his colon had been discovered before they became cancerous, his chances of survival would have been good.
"I wish everyone would get screened at age 50," Dr. Sankey stated. "Though people with risk factors-like a family history of colon cancer or inflammatory bowel disease--should be screened earlier."
She grew up in the small town of Factoryville, Pennsylvania, and attended the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Her gastrointestinal training came at Thomas Jefferson University's Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. She was chief resident her final year there.
Dr. Sankey has been a partner in AA Gastroenterology Associates for 12 years. There's a running gag between her and Dr. William Cassidy, another partner. They send each other tiny pig tchotchkes as pranks. She never knows when she's going to get "pigged" next.
The doctor met her husband, Baltimorean Raymond Olender, in college. He works in medical sales for Quest Laboratories. The couple has two children: 17-year old Corey, a rising senior at South River High; and Shelby, 10, a 5th grader at Crofton Woods Elementary School.
The family is involved with Community United Methodist Church in Crofton, and, once a year Dr. Sankey spends 5 to 7 days in the Appalachians on mission trips. "It's a service project. I go help rebuild and repair houses." She's also treasurer of a women's church group.
Both parents are involved in their children's lives-a blur of science fairs, sports, soccer practices, and chorus rehearsals.
Shelby is a Junior Girl Scout in Troop 4067. Dr. Sankey signed on as her troop leader and enjoys the marshmallow s'mores cooked by campfires, wacky field trips, and cookie booth sales.
"The community manager's eyes lit up," she laughs, "when she realized one of her leaders was a doctor."
Clifford Solomon
Neurosurgery
Dr. Solomon's office is filled with touchstones of his career. There are clippings from local and regional newspapers recounting several surgeries he's performed for patients who were considered inoperable. They recovered spectacularly. On the wall hangss a framed and autographed photo of Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France. On the floor is a wooden, knee-high statue of an angel, wings fully outstretched, and on his bookcase cabinet, a photo of Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgery wunderkind.
The two are collaborating on a project called Angels in the O.R. that they hope to launch later this year. They met when Dr. Solomon was a student at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Solomon later completed his general surgery and neurosurgery internships at Johns Hopkins, followed by more training at New York City's Cornell Medical Center and the University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland. He is now in his 12th year in private practice, in the Sajak Building.
He watched the 1987 operation performed by Dr. Carson's team that separated the German Binder twins and worked on an effort to separate another pair of conjoined twins in 2005.
Dr. Solomon's roots are in Baltimore-he was born at Johns Hopkins-but he gravitated to Annapolis for the "water and pleasant life." He has three children, Jacob, 15; Tessa Grace, 7; and Isabella, 4. He is married to Bernadette, a former massage therapist who specialized in massage for infants and pregnant women.
Noting, in his practice, "less is better, the best surgery we do is none," he continually hunts for operating methods that are "least disruptive of human tissues as humanly possible." He uses techniques that take away bone rather than move delicate brain tissue.
Some of his patients might think that his operations are "magic," and the doctor does practice a little magic-outside the operating room. The fingers that are so adept at removing tumors from deep inside a brain just as nimbly perform jaw-dropping coin and card tricks. "I'm known as the Magic Doctor," he smiles. "I love to show kids magic tricks."
His biggest goal, however, is "trying to balance family and work."
Angel Edwardo Torano
Radiation Oncologist
Anne Arundel Oncology Center
Both lapels of Dr. Torano's white lab coat sparkle with commemorative cancer pins in a rainbow of colors. "This pink one represents breast cancer," he said, ticking off one by one the cancers represented on his coat.
Patients have given him the pins out of gratitude for his destroying the diseases spreading inside them.
He grew up straddling two cultures, but white lab coats were a constant. His father is Puerto Rican, his mother, a nurse, is Irish. His family moved back and forth between the D.C. area and Puerto Rico. Flawlessly bilingual, he occasionally translates Anne Arundel Medical Center's (AAMC's) pamphlets into Spanish.
In both cultures, his mother worked and volunteered as a nurse.
During his high school years in Silver Spring, Dr. Torano found another mentor. The teenager worked as an aide at Great Oaks, a facility for people with handicapping conditions. An orthopedic doctor volunteered there every Thursday and often spent time talking about his field and illnesses with the impressionable youth.
In college at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Torano was one of fifteen students chosen for an elite combined BA-MD program.
During a surgical internship, he discovered the radiation oncology department in the hospital's basement. "In those days, they were always in the basement," he laughs. Facile with math, physics, and biology, he found this specialty shared much of the same knowledge as surgeons, but "it's a more scientific, cerebral field, a lot of math analysis." Plus, he liked the lifestyle more. "Better hours, daylight hours," he notes.
He has been at AAMC for 12 years, where his practice "treats all patients as if they are family members. In treating them with dignity, honesty and kindness, the practice reflects our personalities. It takes a team to make this practice a success. You don't practice by yourself. You practice with the referring physicians."
A committed alternate Wednesday night sailor, he also enjoys motorboating with his children, 11½-year-old twins Julia and Andrew and Elena, 9. With his wife Jane, the family lives in Bay Ridge and is active in the community.
Suzanne Rindfleisch
Neonatial Medicine
Suzanne Rindfleisch's patients will probably never remember the doctor who peered intently into their faces as they lay in their beds in the large darkened room, quiet save for the beeping of computerized medical equipment.
But their parents do.
The congenial, soft-spoken Pittsburgh native is a doctor of osteopathy, a neonatologist who cares for the youngest and most helpless of all: newborns. Since March 1995, Dr. Rindfleisch has been the director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), on the second floor of Anne Arundel Medical Center.
In a few months, the ward will move a few hundred yards into a new, $4 million home. Compared to the current unit, which has 16 beds (and backup space for 6 more), the new facility will offer 30.
"It will have everything," she enthuses, "including 20 'kangaroo beds.' They're warming beds in which you can place a baby immediately after birth. You never have to move the child and it minimizes handling and stress. We'll also have top-of-the-line ventilators and 20 private rooms, as opposed to the one big room we have now. It will be a state-of-the-art unit."
Out of the 5,000 babies born at AAMC every year (up from 2,500 just a few years ago), the unit sees 500 newborns each year. Some are merely there for observation-almost all "multiple birth" babies spend some time there-or to lie under sunlamps to clear up a touch of jaundice. Others, like the micro-preemies born at their 23rd week of gestation and weighing 1.5 pounds, have more severe problems that keep them in the NICU for months.
Dr. Rindfleisch and her three adopted children-Luis, 16, and Stephanie, 15, both at Severn River High School, and 10-year old Chris, at Jones Elementary-live in Arnold. Her late husband, Ralph, was a doctor, a naval reservist and Gulf War veteran, and a private pilot. He died in a single-engine plane crash in Pennsylvania in 2003.
The two met at George Washington University, where she was enrolled in the physician's assistant program before attending West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine.
Her services are contracted by the hospital, along with those of her partner, Dr. Yannyann Lin, a longtime friend. She credits Dr. Lin, office manager Jody Dudra, and "a great staff" for getting her through her husband's tragic death and keeping everything organized and running smoothly.
She also feels blessed by the hospital's "wonderful nurses. I am grateful to be here."
The doctor looks forward to the annual reunions of unit "graduates" every September. "They grow and develop so quickly," she marveled. "Babies are so resilient. Working with them is so rewarding."
Her big passion "is my kids. They're active in ice hockey so I'm a big hockey fan now."
"I even had tickets for last year's season-the one that never happened. I can't wait to go to the games this year."