Douglas Wisor, M.D.

Athletic success came early for Doug Wisor, and the gifted high school football player set his sights on a career on the field.

When he shopped for college scholarships, however, he couldn’t find what he’d hoped for from a Division I school. Instead, he had to rely on his other strengths. “I chose a college based on the fact that they had ROTC. I needed to pick a school where I could get a leadership or academic scholarship.”

Dickinson College came through, and though he was a talented college quarterback—inducted into the Dickinson College Sports Hall of Fame as a member of the 1989 football team—his hopes for a career as an athlete began to fade. “You realize how big that pool of talent is,” says Wisor.

His academic gifts and an interest in leadership prevailed and eventually led him to another field—medicine. Those strengths, combined with a summer experience as a teen, solidified his path. “One of my best friends’ father was a pediatrician, and I worked with him one summer. I followed him around and helped in his office. I had been interested in medicine and the challenge of it.”

While the challenge intrigued him, another observation Wisor made during that summer experience appealed to his interest in helping others and to his leadership abilities. “As a pediatrician, everyone in the town knew him. It was that community awareness factor— he was not just a doctor. It’s the person everyone goes to to solve a problem.”

Wisor considered pursuing the obvious sports medicine specialties. “I always liked sports, and I thought about doing orthopaedics and sports medicine,” says Wisor, who explains that an up-and-coming specialty caught his interest instead.

The field of interventional medicine, which included pain management with minimally invasive surgery, was building momentum. Most doctors in this emerging field had a background as an anesthesiologist or a physiatrist, which is a rehabilitation physician. “I realized that everyone needed pain management—a rehab doctor.”

Wisor began his medical career with the U.S. Army, eventually serving as chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Ga. In 2002 Wisor left that position and joined the team at Capitol Spine & Pain Centers in Glen Allen.

“It’s extremely rewarding to be practicing a specialty that helps people get relief from chronic pain,” Wisor says. “As it happens, most of our patients are generally healthy people, save for their pain, which may have been caused by a recent illness or injury. Whether they’re healthy or debilitated, young or old, our patients are our top priority, and it’s my job to improve their quality of life. It’s a great thing to help so many people across so many demographics.”

What surprises me is how our differences and cultural backgrounds shape how we respond to medical challenges…how medicine is an art. You can try to make it like a cookbook with ingredients and a recipe, but medicine is much more of an art than a science. The challenge is to make it all come together. That’s the art of medicine. Every patient is different. There are generalizations in basic anatomy that apply to everyone, but the human spirit is very distinct.

In my field it’s not just about reducing pain, but restoring people to their physical activities, hobbies and the life they enjoy. I want to hear what you want to do and [determine] how we can get you there. I’ve seen people with severe spinal or head injuries, and no matter what their goals are, they’ll do [what we recommend].  But if someone doesn’t want to [get better], there’s no amount of persuasion that can do it for them

My biggest inspiration was my literature professor at Dickinson—everyone called him Uncle Phil. He changed my life. He was in my wedding. He was so good at talking with people. He shaped the way I see things—taught me to see them not just through my eyes but through the eyes of others, including my patients.

I’m a people watcher. I enjoy discovering common threads between people. I find those things interesting. I wouldn’t do anything different.

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Outliers. I’ve read two or three of his books. I also love
Tom Wolfe.

Some days I think it would be great to be more creative, but at the same time I love what I do, so I wouldn’t change it.

Interview By Sharon Miller Cindrich

Photography By Lucky Judd