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| Tom DiBello and his family enjoy a vacation together. Photographs courtesy of Tom DiBello. |
When people say, "I'm too busy," to do something, I tell them about Tom DiBello because there's no one busier than Tom, but he always has time to participate in a leadership role, take care of his family, and run his practice and business.
—Bill Barringer, CO
Bill Barringer, CO, FAAOP, has known Tom DiBello, CO, FAAOP, for the better part of 25 years—since he was one of DiBello's residency directors at the University of Oklahoma (UO), Oklahoma City.
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| From left: Lyndsey, Lesley, Tom, and Andrew DiBello. |
"As a teacher, you always know you're successful when [one of] your students can come back and teach you something," he says. "Tom has taught me many things about our profession, and I always look at him to measure my success." Barringer has good reason for his high opinion of DiBello. Since the time he was a resident under Barringer and Gary Trexler, CO, DiBello has become one of O&P's most distinguished leaders. At the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists (the Academy), he has served on the board of directors, as a member of its executive committee, and in 2001, as its president. He has given more than 50 lectures at clinical and professional meetings and at universities and has been a prolific contributor to major O&P texts, including the AAOS Atlas of Orthoses and Assistive Devices. In 2007, DiBello received the Distinguished Practitioner Award from the Academy, and he is now on the executive track of the American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association (AOPA), where he is scheduled to serve as president in 2010.
A Winding Road to O&P
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| New pharmacy school graduate, Tom DiBello, poses with his parents. |
DiBello took a circuitous path to O&P. Unlike some professionals in the field, DiBello didn't grow up with an O&P practitioner in the family. The youngest of three children, DiBello was raised in the small town of Washington, Pennsylvania, where he dreamed of becoming an aeronautical engineer. In high school, where he says he was a good, but not outstanding student, he "lost perspective on that goal. It is possible that high school calculus dissuaded me," he says. During high school, he worked in a pharmacy and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in pharmacy from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1978. After three years of practice, however, DiBello says, "I discovered that I really didn't like it much at all.... I was complaining about the work I was doing, and the career, and the fact that I found it sort of mundane and boring and repetitious." At a family gathering, his brother-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon, suggested that DiBello look into orthotics and prosthetics.
He did, and the fit was near perfect. Pharmacy's loss became O&P's gain. DiBello applied and was accepted to the O&P certificate program at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois. In 1982, DiBello and his wife, Lesley, sold most of their possessions, packed their small daughter and son, Lyndsey and Andrew, into their car, and headed to Chicago.
In recalling the first years of his O&P education, DiBello says, "I found the whole process fascinating—the fact that we were involved from the evaluation process to the completion of the process of fitting the orthoses and prostheses, and we were also oftentimes—particularly 30 years ago—involved in the manufacture of that device." At Northwestern, DiBello trained in both orthotics and prosthetics, but focused on orthotics for the rest of his career.
A Most Fortuitous Act
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| DiBello (right) poses with his fellow interns at the University of Oklahoma. |
DiBello told The O&P EDGE, "We are products of the experiences and education we have." He refers to his next educational step as his most fortuitous act. "There were no mandatory residency programs, and I realized that I needed more training. Unlike a lot of my classmates, I had not grown up in the industry, nor had I worked as a technician, assistant, or anything of that nature. I was accepted into the [residency] program at the University of Oklahoma, and from June of 1983 to May of 1984, I worked there as a resident under Bill Barringer's and Gary Trexler's tutelage. And that really shaped the way that I would practice. Bill taught us that it was critically important to know and understand the characteristics of a particular diagnosis. Additionally, he expected us to provide a very high level of care, both in terms of fit and function and finish. Gary Trexler was very particular about the way things went out the door, the way they looked, the way they were finished and so forth. Those were habits I carried with me throughout my career."
Trexler recalls that as a resident, "Tom was amazingly energetic. I never saw anybody like him. We couldn't teach him enough. He was a like a human sponge. He was always asking, ‘What's next?' And he had real vision for the future, so I'm really not surprised that he's been so successful since he left our practice."
After the University of Oklahoma, DiBello took his first O&P job at New England Brace in Hookset, New Hampshire. There, he said, he "got to interact with some very talented people," including Paul Guimond, CO, George Rogers, CO, and Peter Couture, CP. He served at New England Brace until 1987, when he moved his family to Michigan to work at Dearborn Rehabilitative Orthotics and Prosthetics. He worked there until 1989, when he began a three-year stint with Becker Orthopedic, Birmingham, Michigan. His time at Becker exposed him to the business and manufacturing side of O&P, and he "learned a great deal from Rudy Becker."
In his final year at Becker, DiBello received a call from Don Dannell, CO, who had been a resident with DiBello at UO. Dannell was selling his Houston, Texas, practice and invited DiBello to buy it. In 1992, DiBello purchased the practice, which employed a single administrator and several technicians. That humble practice became what is now DiBello's thriving business, Dynamic Orthotics and Prosthetics.
A Dynamic Career
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| DiBello teaches orthotic fabrication in El Salvador. |
By the time DiBello took over Dynamic Orthotics and Prosthetics, the dauntless enthusiasm that informed DiBello's residency was clearly shaping his career. In the early years of Dynamic Orthotics and Prosthetics, DiBello devoted his days, and many evenings and weekends, to patient care and running the business. "We've tried to grow our practice on the principle that quality care and service is only possible when the practitioner is able to take into consideration all the variables associated with a particular patient's presentation and really provide exemplary patient care and customer service. We've placed a tremendous emphasis on, and devoted significant resources to, making sure that our patients are pleased with the outcomes of our services."
Now, 17 years later, Dynamic Orthotics and Prosthetics has three offices that employ ten full-time practitioners and about 15 technicians, many of them working from the main office, a 26,000-square-foot structure with a highly versatile laboratory that produces most of the company's wares, from the latest high-tech devices to metal and molded leather.
Even while growing his business, DiBello placed a premium on educating new members of the profession. His company has been a residency education site for many years, and DiBello puts education and clinical care at the forefront of each resident's experiences. He explains, "We literally say, ‘Will you please watch how I manage this patient? Notice that I make eye contact, that I greet them with a smile, and that I will then take a seat on a stool that is actually below them, so that they are sitting above me. Notice that when I ask them questions, I focus on them as they answer.'
"Our focus is on education," he continues. "We really don't have any expectation that [residents] will be seeing patients with minimal supervision until very, very late in the residency."
Giving Back
Though a booming business and residency program would have been more than enough to keep most practitioners overscheduled, DiBello has also dedicated much of his time to serving the profession as a volunteer. His involvement with the Academy began in the early 1990s, and by 1994, he was serving on its board of directors. In 1999 he entered the executive committee, and in 2001, he became its president.
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"One of the things that Bill Barringer taught me," DiBello recalls, "is that if you are truly a professional, and if orthotics and prosthetics is a profession, then its members must be willing to continually expand their education throughout their careers, and secondly, they must be willing to give something back, either through their membership in professional organizations and trade associations or through the donation of their time and other altruistic aspects of the provision of care to developing countries or individuals within our society...."
DiBello's contribution to the field hasn't been only in the form of hours logged in the associations. His colleagues told The O&P EDGE that DiBello contributes a singular vision to the profession.
Project Quantum Leap (PQL) was originally an Academy-based project with a relatively limited goal of generating funds for education, with some exploration of possibilities for research and expansion of the profession, according to Gary Berke, MS, CP, FAAOP. Then, Berke says, "What happened was one of those things that you kind of never forget. We were sitting in a meeting discussing Quantum Leap and Tom says, ‘We should just get a grant, like a million-dollar grant, to fund all of this stuff.' And from there, we figured out how to do it. We applied for a grant, and the Academy ultimately received five years of a million-dollar grant. It really was Tom's vision and ability to see that not only could we do it, but we should do it."
Berke concludes, "He's one of those visionary folks who can step back a little bit and see the real vision. I was just so impressed."
Today, DiBello devotes about 16 hours per week to managing his business, more hours to his work for AOPA, and he says that he never wants to completely divorce himself from clinical care.
He will also celebrate his 32nd wedding anniversary in 2009. "I've been very fortunate to have a very supportive wife who has followed me all over the United States," he laughs. His wife, Lesley, has a master's degree in teaching and substitutes at the high school level part time. His daughter, Lyndsey, now 29, is a lawyer, and his son, Andrew, 27, has a degree in audio engineering and is in charge of Dynamic Orthotics and Prosthetic's IT department, inventory management, and purchasing.
To DiBello, both the profession's future and his own look bright. Though he says, "There's always a crisis du jour," he adds, "I think…the outlook is more encouraging today than it's been in a long time. I think that the challenges are really great, especially for independent orthotic and prosthetic practitioners, but I think that we are going to see our recognition as important providers of care in rehabilitation continue to expand as the years go by and as we expand our educational systems to include a master's and, to a certain extent, PhDs."
And despite all of his achievements, DiBello says, "I really hope that my most significant achievements as they relate to the field are still ahead of me." Considering his track record, most would agree that he has a great chance of success.
Morgan Stanfield can be reached at
