Dr. Manuel Grimaldi
COMPASSIONATE
PHYSICIAN AWARD
Dr. Charles Dobbs brought the young Grimaldi on as a partner in his Louisville oncology-hematology practice some 40 years ago, and recalls his colleague taking an interest in patients that went above and beyond. Now retired,
Dr. Dobbs recalls that when the health of one patient they shared began to
deteriorate while he was away on vacation, Dr. Grimaldi made it a point to
be at the woman’s home when she died. His upbeat nature, even in the face
of devastating disease, inspired not only the patients, said Dr. Dobbs, but also
their colleagues. “It’s stressful to us as well,” he explains. Dr. Grimaldi, deeply
spiritual and devoted to family, would approach even the most difficult cases
with energy and optimism.
Pratik Bhade, a first year student at the University of Louisville School of
Medicine, considers him a mentor. Bhade volunteers alongside him at the
Family Community Clinic in Louisville, which provides free medical care to
patients in need. “Though his medical knowledge is profound,” Bhade says,
“it is in his quick wit, charm and marvelous sense of humor that helps his
patients find solace.”
Active in retirement, Dr. Grimaldi also lends time and expertise as a volunteer to Louisville-based Supplies Over Seas, which donates unused medical
materials and equipment to impoverished communities around the world, and
annually leads the Hand in Hand Ministries/Greater Louisville Medical Society
Foundation medical missions to Belize and Nicaragua.*
Dr. Grimaldi believes using all means to help a gravely ill patient includes not
only what’s medically imperative, but also what ensures dignity, and addresses
the needs of family members and caregivers. “You have to treat the whole
human being: medical, social, emotional, spiritual,” he says. “You can put up a
shield not to be touched by it, or you can embrace it,” and in so doing, enable
a patient to move toward understanding and acceptance.
For years after Caryn Mucci was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, she
continued under Dr. Grimaldi’s care, eventually regaining her health. When
recently diagnosed with breast cancer, Mucci once again turned to Grimaldi
for guidance. “To this day, he periodically checks in with me,” she says. “That
is who Dr. Grimaldi is.”
* see the July 2016 Louisville Medicine for articles from Nicaragua
OCTOBER 2016
2016 DOCTORS’ BALL PHYSICIAN HONOREES
L
ouisville oncologist-hematologist Dr. Manuel Grimaldi learned early to
be resilient in the face of life-changing challenges. Born in the province
of Seville, Spain as World War II drew to a close, Grimaldi lost both
of his parents to tuberculosis by the age of six. He says TB was like cancer at
the time – challenging to treat and often a killer. He was drawn to oncology-hematology, he says, not only by the science of the specialty, but because it
requires, “a sharing of the hurt, the pain.” For many cancer patients, he says,
“It’s an existential loneliness that these people have to suffer. When you get to
work with that, you start developing an empathy not to the cells or the tumor,
but to the person.”
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