Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Winter 2021 - 24

Interview with Lucy J. Cairns Speech
continued from page 23
Gainesville while supporting myself working as a secretary at the university
hospital. By this time, I am sure my parents were in despair that I would
ever emerge from being a professional student! But I had finally come to
grasp the importance of investing whatever it would take to have a career
that would challenge me to be my best self while continuing to be a lifelong learner and developing rewarding relationships with those I would
serve.

With friend Audrey at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary

It took almost two years to fulfill the requirements to apply to medical
school, but I found that I enjoyed studying the sciences and being in
the hospital. My boss, Dr. George Caranasos, was Chief of the Division
of Internal Medicine and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of
Medicine. He insisted that I apply to his alma mater, which I was not
considering in view of what I thought of as my dim prospects. He must
have given me a stellar recommendation. After graduation from Hopkins
I trained in ophthalmology at the Scheie Eye Institute of the University of
Pennsylvania.
MR: When and how did you come to move to Berks County? How was
that experience?

With sister Sara on Cadillac Mt in Acadia

BCMS Drug Take-back with Kristen Sandel, Mike Baxter,
and Jin Xu

Upon finishing residency training in 1989 I worked part-time while
having my second child. In 1991 Dr. Allan Wulc--an oculoplastic
surgeon who was one of my favorite attendings at Scheie--was thinking
about leaving academia. He visited Berks County to explore joining Dr.
David Pearah after Dr. Moiz Carim left Pearah's practice to set up his own
office. Dr. Wulc came away so enthused about the opportunity and the
community he found here that he encouraged me to contact Dr. Pearah as
well. In the end, Dr. Wulc stayed in the Philadelphia area while I joined Dr.
Pearah in September of 1991. My husband, who had trained in Pediatrics
at St. Christopher's Hospital, was hired by the Reading Hospital to staff
their pediatric clinic.
I was warned that Berks County natives could be rather insular and that
a physician from 'outside', and a female to boot, might not be immediately
welcomed. This turned out to be not the experience I had. From my first
day of seeing patients in Berks County I have been treated with a degree
of friendliness and trust that has been truly humbling. I cannot imagine
working within a nicer community. Adding to my good fortune has been
the willingness of my employers (first Dr. Pearah and, after his retirement,
Dr. Peter Campanella) to allow me to practice in my own style even though
that meant seeing fewer patients in a day than some physicians do. I also
owe a debt of gratitude to the wonderful staff at what is now Campanella
Eye Associates for their support and hard work for our mutual patients over
the years.
MR: Tell us about your family and in particular your two sons and
what they are doing?
Both of my sons graduated from the Wyomissing school district and
attended state universities. My older son finished training as a Family
Medicine physician and began his career just months before the onset of the
pandemic. He trained at Charleston Area Medical Center in Charleston,
WV and joined an affiliated practice in the town of Nitro (built in just
10 months to supply gunpowder during WW I). Way back when he was
an undergraduate, he met an exceptional young woman whose love and

Birding Cape May with cousin Jeff and sister Sara
24

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Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Winter 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Winter 2021

Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Winter 2021 - 1
Berks County Medical Society Medical Record Winter 2021 - 2
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