DR. WHO?
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
JOHN GUARNASCHELLI, MD
Aaron Burch
D
r. John Guarnaschelli has practiced neurosurgery in Louisville for 40 years. Over the years, Dr. Guarnaschelli learned
from some of the most prominent physicians in the world,
and he used those skills to serve his hometown in a variety of
substantial roles.
Born and raised in Louisville, Dr. Guarnaschelli’s mother and father were first generation Italian immigrants. His father, Dominic,
was an artist and tailor and the oldest of eight children. Dominic
owned and operated a tailor shop in the Highlands for more than
60 years before he passed away. His wife, Angela, was a homemaker who helped raise John and his sisters, Mary Angela and
Beatrice.
Dr. Guarnaschelli attended St. Xavier High School and graduated
in 1959. “That was a really smart group of guys. Over half of the 25
in my class got their Ph.D. I did alright in school but I was certainly in the middle of that class,” he laughed.
Following graduation, Dr. Guarnaschelli spent a brief period
with famed monk Thomas Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani
in New Haven, KY. However, he dispels the notion of pursuing
the monkhood as a larger goal in life. “Thomas Merton was a very
kind man, but it wasn’t for me,” he said. “It was basically just a
farm community. I soon realized how far behind it had put me in
choosing a career and set out to correct that.”
Going back to school, Dr. Guarnaschelli threw himself into his
studies. Taking classes at Bellarmine University, the University of
Louisville and then Notre Dame in rapid succession, he finished
his undergraduate degree in just two and a half years, and was
able to graduate from Notre Dame in 1963. But his work towards
becoming a physician was just beginning.
“The University of Louisville was considered to be a high quality
medical school at the time,” Dr. Guarnaschelli recalled of his enrollment in 1964. “A lot of the faculty were post-World War II physicians. Both the pre-clinical and clinical years were really quite
strong. There were some really
good specialties, and neurology in particular was strong.”
Dr. Guarnaschelli’s career
has been defined in part by
the fantastic mentors under
whom he studied. The first of
those was Dr. Ephraim Roseman, chief of the UofL Neurology
Department. Drawn to neurology by the overlapping of advanced
scientific processes, psychology and psychiatry, Dr. Guarnaschelli
took to Dr. Roseman rather quickly.
“I spent at least 50 percent of my time in medical school in the
neurology clinics with Dr. Roseman and the rest of the department. Dr. Roseman encouraged me to pursue surgery if I was truly
serious about neurology, so I followed his advice.”
In 1967, Dr. Guarnaschelli graduated from U of L’s School of
Medicine and flew across the country to the Los Angeles County/
University of Southern California (USC) Medical Center where
he would spend seven years completing a neurosurgery residency.
“It was a great advantage training where I did. Do you know the
scene in 'Gone with the Wind' where there are 1,000 people laying
across the battlefield? It was just like that my first day as a resident.
We must have had 20 to 30 gunshot wounds and traumatic head
injuries that day. We had three operating rooms going around the
clock. It was the largest trauma center in the country at the time
and maybe still is. In that type of environment, you become adept
fairly quickly at knowing what to do.”
“The most difficult part for me is when you start dealing with patients who have malignant tumors,” he said. “Being worn down by
sick and dying patients was a problem and is still difficult for me.
It’s tough to go through that with people you have a relationship
with. But, treatment has come a long way. CT scans became available in 1972. MRI scans followed in the early 1980s. Those two
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Editor’s Note: Welcome to Louisville Medicine’s member spotlight section, Dr. Who? In the interest of simply
getting to know each other as a society of colleagues, we’ll be highlighting random GLMS physicians on a
regular basis. If you would like to recommend any GLMS physician member to the Editorial Board for this
section, please e-mail [email protected] or call 736-6338.
JULY 2016
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