Spotlight - Walter Sobczyk, MD

Spotlight

 

Walter Sobczyk, MD Golf outing benefiting the hospital. Left to right is my son Andy, myself, the chick-fil-a cow, former UK and NFL tight end Jacob Tamme, former UofL football coach Howard Schnellenburger, and my younger son Ben.

("sub-check") - among friends I go by Walt

Golf outing benefiting the hospital. Left to right is my son Andy, myself, the chick-fil-a cow, former UK and NFL tight end Jacob Tamme, former UofL football coach Howard Schnellenburger,  and my younger son Ben.

Director of the UofL/Norton Healthcare adult congenital heart disease program
Pediatric Cardiologist

How long have you worked in Pediatrics?   36 years, including residency and fellowship

What is your favorite thing about your job? Seeing a patient or family in the outpatient setting for the first several visits after a difficult time in the hospital that ultimately turned out well. To share in their relief and happiness is special, particularly if you help them through this problem from the beginning.

 

  1. What is your hometown? Omaha, Nebraska
  2. What is your favorite movie? The Matrix, but only the first one.
  3. Tell us about your family: My wife Patty is a former intensive care and dialysis nurse, now enjoying maintaining our home and garden, spending time with our family and friends, refinishing and flipping furniture, and is a proud breast cancer survivor. My oldest son Andy lives in Atlanta with his wife Sara, and works in healthcare management and consulting. My younger son Ben is engaged to his fiancée Nichole, lives here in Louisville, and teaches social studies at his alma   mater Trinity High.
  4. Do you have pets? (If yes, what kind? How many?) We have two dogs named Milo and Baxter, who are a schnauzer poodle mix a.k.a. Schnoodles, and a rescue cat of unknown breed named Josh.
  5. What are you doing, where are you going, for your next vacation? Enjoying wonderful food, maybe a bit of golf or time at the blackjack table, and enjoying beautiful sunsets with my family, somewhere in the Caribbean.
  6. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? A priest or a doctor; I’ve never regretted my final decision.
  7. What is one of your proudest accomplishments? Instituting and developing our transmissional echocardiography program, which in 1991 was the first of its kind in the United States. The program served as a national model in the early days of Tele-medicine, and now has grown to almost 30 hospitals throughout the state. This system lets us review echocardiograms as if preformed here in Louisville, answer clinical questions as soon local providers ask them, and allows our state-wide outreach program to provide the highest quality of care to local hospitals, physicians and families.
  8. What is your favorite quote? “90 percent of success in life is just showing up” -Woody Allen.
  9. What was your first job? A cook at McDonald’s

10. What is your favorite ice cream? Greater’s Chocolate Coconut Almond