For many years he had a wonderful policy that was his way of giving something back to the up-and-coming distance runners: if you could beat him in a marathon, the treatment was free!
I knew all the great podiatrists of the 1970s. I could have made a Calderesque mobile with the many brightly-colored orthotics they each personally designed for me.
Still remember the diagnosis. Forefoot valgus is a structural foot deformity where the forefoot (the ball of the foot and the metatarsals) is everted—turned outward or downward on the outside edge. But, wait, there’s more. Rearfoot varus is a structural foot deformity where the heel bone (calcaneus) is inverted or tilted inward relative to the lower leg (tibia) when the subtalar joint is in a neutral position. I had both. No wonder I was slow.
John Pagliano, Steve Subotnik, Harry Hlavac. Noted healers all. But they weren’t magicians.
Dr. Pagliano was my favorite. An accomplished athlete with a Honolulu office, his article “Traumatic Injuries” appeared in RUNNING: The Magazine For Thinking Runners, December 1977.
I was hurt once in high school and despondent, and Dr. Pagliano made some orthotics that kept me healthy for two years afterwards – he had a great manner, even with adolescents.
John Pagliano, DPM, honored in new Memorial Student Scholarship
The John W. Pagliano, DPM ’66 Memorial Scholarship in Podiatric Biomechanics has been awarded to Diana Kvach. On March 2, 2023, the first Dr. John W. Pagliano, DPM ’66 Memorial Scholarship in Podiatric Biomechanics was awarded to Diana Kvach in a White Coat Ceremony for the class of 2026. The first-generation college student will receive a scholarship of $60,000 to support tuition and costs during her second year.
“My brother John was both a leader and an inspiration in the field of podiatric sports medicine, and I am really pleased to honor his memory at the college that launched both of our careers in podiatry, as well as our father’s,” said Dr. W. Dennis Pagliano, DPM ’72, who, together with his wife, Connie Pagliano, established the scholarship in 2022. First-year students who demonstrated academic excellence, an interest in and aptitude for biomechanics, and financial need were eligible to apply for the scholarship. Some 80% of the class applied.
AAPSM Founding Father, Past President and Fellow Dr. John Pagliano, who died in 2012 from cancer, left an indelible mark on the field of podiatric biomechanics. Along with this father (class of 1931) and his younger brother Dennis (class of 1972), John was an alumnus of the California College of Podiatric Medicine (CCPM) in San Francisco (class of 1966).
An avid runner, Dr. Pagliano completed over 500 races, including 86 marathons and six 50-mile ultramarathons in his lifetime. “He could relate to all the athletes, and totally understood that when your foot hurts you hurt all over,” said Dr. Dutra, DPM, who first met John in 1981 at a meeting of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine, the leading organization promoting knowledge about lower-extremity sports medicine.
During Dr. Dutra’s podiatric sports medicine post graduate fellowship in Dr. Pagliano’s Long Beach private practice, they treated many professional athletes from local Los Angeles teams the Lakers, the Dodgers, and the Rams. “John was humble and didn’t toot his own horn, but there were so many success stories. He was so good at getting runners and athletes back to the condition they were in before the injury,” recalled Dr. Dutra.
I believe he was the podiatrist who kept all the runners off the sidewalks by telling us that concrete is nine times as hard as asphalt. Thanks, Doc, for saving my knees.
“He also contributed to my philosophy to treat every patient as an athlete,” said Dutra, a podiatric consultant for intercollegiate athletics for the University of California at Berkeley, and previously for the Golden State Warriors basketball team. He explained: “We tend to be more proactive with treating athletes and getting to the root cause. What I call my two-pronged approach to treatment involves not just treating symptoms but also the etiology of the condition.”
At the White Coat Ceremony, Dr. Dutra explained that Dr. John Pagliano was “one of the ‘Pod Fathers’ who helped to start the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine (AAPSM) way back in the 1970s.” Dr. Dutra, also an alum of CCPM, remembers Dr. Pagliano, who served as the third president of the AAPSM, as a humorous, entertaining speaker who loved education and lectured nationally.
Scholarship recipient Diana Kvach decided to go into medicine after volunteering with medics in East Africa when she was still in high school. She remembers encountering a father and his teenage son, who had a broken leg, in an abandoned hospital in South Sudan. A victim of the country’s civil war, the boy had been unable to flee with the rest of his family. “The doctors had used a weighted rock to suspend his leg in a cast,” she said, impressed with their “amazing ingenuity.”
Speaking of ingenious… Like successful theatrical presentations, effective advertising entails good timing and knowing your audience, in addition to having a good product. To attract athletes to his practice, John Pagliano, a podiatrist in Long Beach, CA, sponsors 5- and 10-km races, so his practice is advertised by each event’s T-shirts and programs. He also holds running clinics after the races, where participants discuss running-related problems. The local press has taken notice: In August 2007, the Daily Breeze ran an article about Pagliano in which he was referred to as “Doctor Distance.” (Source:contemporaryobgyn.net)
Letters Of Condolences
Dr. Pagliano was one of my dad’s [Dr. Thomas J. Bassler, who claimed that a person who didn’t smoke and could finish a marathon in under four hours was assured of not suffering a heart attack in six years] running buddies for many years. He touched many lives and was loved by the best bunch of tough old long distance runners that I’ve ever known. He will be missed, but (like my dad) he will always be in the wind at my back, helping me to make it to the next mile marker. With sympathy and sorrow, Joanie Bassler.
John was a fraternity brother at Occidental College. At a lunch about six years ago he said he would look at my feet and see if he could get me running again. One look at the feet, two x rays and orthotics Later I was off again at a very slow trot. But he got me moving and he never stopped moving. Great spirit, great humor, great guy.
Dr. Pagliano is the reason I can still run today. He was a highly skilled, wonderful doctor, and a warm friendly person. He cared about each of his patents and always enquired about our personal lives. I just saw him in February and his passing is a shock.. He will be greatly missed.
Dr. Pag has been my doctor for 30 years. He got me through Boston when I had tripped and chipped an ankle bone one week before the run. He made orthotics for my son and charged little because he had no insurance. We miss him so much!
Dr. Pagliano gives his patients a handout regarding what shoes are best for your type of feet. He will also point out specific models from certain brands that are best for you, so you have a guide when purchasing shoes.
Once I went to see him was when I had been injured while training for a marathon. I was not a gazelle. I did not and do not resemble the lithe figures you picture when you say “runner.” I was in that group known in running circles as a “Clydesdale.” Big and slow…. My goal was to finish, not to break any records. Ideally, to finish before the course closed. I trained for months, determined to cross that line 26.2 miles from where I started.
Then came the injury. While the injury itself was painful, more overwhelming were my fears that I wouldn’t be able to participate in the event. Not only did Dr. Pagliano reassure me that I’d be able to do so, he gave me good advice for staying healthy while I continued to train. When I went to see him in a follow-up visit, I confessed to him that I had a typical first-marathoner’s fear that I wouldn’t be able to go the distance. He asked me to tell him the farthest distance I had run in training. When I did so, he again reassured me. I can’t put this into words, really — but there was something so calm and certain in that reassurance — he looked me right in the eye and said with a sincerity I could not doubt, “You’ll do it. You’ll make it.”
It gave me faith that long outlasted my recovery from the injury. Many times during my training and that marathon, I thought of Dr. Pagliano. Although most of his patients were people who would have been able to run the race more than twice as fast as I did, he had never treated me as a lesser being. I was runner. I would be all right.
There are so many of us, whether Clydesdales, gazelles, athletes, or couch potatoes, who know we will be all right because of John Pagliano. I will think of him with gratitude over the distance. (Source:https://janburke.blogspot.com/2012/05/remembering-john-pagliano.html)
Jacqueline Hansen, Two-Time Women’s Marathon World Record Holder, was also a patient of Dr, John Pagliano.
John was the running Doctor for all of us in LA. Other doctors were of the mind you can cure anything with rest. But athletes don’t want to hear that and John was willing to keep us moving and curing what ailed us at the same time. He always found a workaround.
For me, it was mostly about my multiple stress fractures. He outfitted me with shoe inserts, but mostly I resisted wearng them, especially in races. No wonder I became expert at running in the pool. So many metatarsal fractures.
He was a running fixture in Southern California, and everyone knew him. We were mightily sad and surprised at his passing. He is greatly missed. Those shoes are impossible to fill.
Podiatrists – except mine, now retired – we salute you!
Dawns on me, as I finish this celebration of Dr. John Pagliano, I only got to know these guys because my body was not meant to run long distances.
Every day.
Year after year.
For years and years and years.
Dr. Pagliano was a treasure, both professionally and as a person. He made sore feet almost fun.
Feet like paddles, probably should have been a swimmer, but I was too dense.