A Magazine Cover Stops a Physician in His Tracks and Reveals a Journey Years in the Making

A few months ago, Matthew D. McCormick, D.O., a Medinah Shriner and emergency physician at Silver Cross Hospital in the southwestern suburbs of Chicago, was flipping through an issue of Leaders in Care magazine when a photo stopped him in his tracks. The image showed a teenage golfer with a picture-perfect swing. As Dr. McCormick read the story, he realized he knew the athlete.

"I absolutely froze," he said. The teenager in the photograph, Owen, had been his patient in the emergency department more than a decade earlier.

"It made me tremendously excited to see that he was doing so well, amazingly well, obviously," Dr. McCormick said. "It made me extremely proud to be a Shriner. Owen shows what outstanding care our system provides."

In 2013, 3-year-old Owen was airlifted to Silver Cross Hospital after a devastating lawnmower accident severely injured his foot. Dr. McCormick quickly determined that Owen needed specialized surgical care beyond what the hospital could provide and referred him to Loyola University Medical Center, where pediatric orthopedic surgeon Teresa Cappello, M.D., took over his care.

Dr. Cappello said that in trauma situations, training and instinct work together. After evaluating Owen's injuries, she determined that it would not be possible to save his foot. She performed only her second Syme amputation, a procedure that removes the foot at the ankle while preserving the heel pad to provide a weight-bearing surface for a prosthetic.

"You can't walk on a skin graft; you need to walk and bear weight on normal skin," Dr. Cappello said.

Owen remained hospitalized for nearly a month. Before his discharge, Dr. Cappello referred him to Jeffrey Ackman, M.D., at Shriners Children's Chicago for prosthetic care and long-term follow-up.

The decision proved life-changing. Today, Owen is a three-sport athlete who competes in golf, basketball and track. Through the years, he has worn 11 prosthetic legs, including one he broke while running a 400-meter race. There is one more connection to the story.

Years after treating Owen, Dr. Cappello joined the medical staff at Shriners Children's Chicago, helping expand the hospital's general orthopedic practice and fracture clinic while providing education to referring physicians.

"It's a small world around here," said Owen's mother, Carrie. "I think it shows this has been where we were meant to be."

Dr. Cappello, who reunited with Owen last year, agrees.

"Seeing how well Owen is doing has supported my instinct that Shriners Children's was the right place to send him," she said.

And for Dr. McCormick, it all came full circle with a magazine cover. What caught his attention as a golfer became a reminder of something far bigger: the lasting impact of specialized pediatric care and the extraordinary futures made possible through Shriners Children's.