A nurse handles his stethoscope or other instruments, and he just observes. When he sees patients now, that is literally what he does - he cannot touch them. Rusk at New York University Medical School, took the attitude that "If you can't use the product you're selling, there's no use selling it," and took him for a 2 1/2-year residency. One doctor told me, 'Why don't you just live off your war insurance?" Another suggested I could start writing books."īut Dr. "I decided to change my specialty, and I began to look around for a residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation. Subsequent surgery, in which he took a calculated risk and lost, left him confined to his wheelchair. Nevertheless, he became an anesthesiologist and was able to work in operating rooms until an automobile accident in 1953. Panzarella, who is 58, began to suffer from multiple schlerosis before he completed his medical training. All we disabled want is the chance to compete without further handicaps."ĭr. ![]() We must break down the barriers of ignorance and fear, intolerance and indifference. In his acceptance speech, following the First Lady and Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall, he said, "The handicapped group is the most discriminated against among minorities. Fanzarella describes himself as "very positive," it was not what he meant when he said to his admirers, "We shall overcome." And the implication could easily be, "See? All you have to do is try, and you can overcome anything".īut while Dr. Carter said yesterday of Panzarella, "does a lot more than most of us who are not handicapped." Completely paralyzed except for his head, he holds three medical teaching positions, two hospital department director-ships and a consultant job.Īt a meeting built around the employment problems of the disabled, all those jobs could seem ironic. The Handicapped American of the Year is traditionally someone who, as Mrs. ![]() Panarella handled the role of super achiever. ![]() Many of those who crowded into the Washington-Hilton Hotel in their wheelchairs, or followed the speeches in sign language, had been out on the streets in recent weeks, demonstrating of the White House and the Department of Health Education and Welfare.īut it was also a response to the new way that Dr. It was partly from a general jubilance that characterized the annual meeting of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped - just a week after regulations were signed enforcing the anti-discrimination laws against the handicapped. Joseph Panzarella Jr.'s head yesterday and kissing him after he received the Handicapped American of the Year award from First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Strangers, both men and women, kept grabbing Dr.
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