Healthcare, etc.: Dr. Vince Butera: Orthopaedic Physician/Life-long Learner

Dr. Butera

Dr.Vincent Butera's father, Liborio, left the island of Sicily with his own father for the U.S. in 1928 when he was fourteen. Many poor peasant farmers had already immigrated to America with the goal of finding a better life, and his uncle was here.

Italy was in turmoil after World War I. The extreme nationalist leader Benito Mussolini, after several years spent systematically eroding democratic ideals and the left, announced his right to assume dictatorial power on January 3rd 1925. Widespread brutality and suffocating oppression followed.

Liborio was safe in the US. And at eighteen, after training in the ancient craft of the cobbler, he opened his own business in York, Pennsylvania. Dr. Butera said his father embodied the “proud Italian work ethic.” This left a deep impression on him. Much of his father’s work involved fashioning and repairing so-called orthopaedic shoes. So the word “orthopaedic” (meaning straight child) was part of Vince’s world from a young age.

Dr. Butera told me that his immigrant family story was typical. After working here for a while, his paternal grandfather would return to Italy “to make another child.” He then came back to the States to work and send money back home. When his grandfather was away, Vince’s father would stay with an uncle.

Eventually, the Butera family settled in York. Vince went to York Catholic High. He was (of course) a good student, and as he “enjoyed science” and wanted to be “in a service type of profession,” he turned to medicine. After graduating from high school in 1963, he attended Catholic all-male La Salle College in North Philadelphia (he had received a scholarship to the school). He felt that the rigorous pre-med program (the vast majority of physician-hopefuls were gradually weeded out) was “the most difficult part” of his education. Medical school was, he said, “focused and supportive.”

La Salle University in Northwest Philadelphia (Credit: La Salle)

(Incidentally, as a team physician and in recognition of what was deemed to be his “service to God and country,” Dr. Butera was inducted into the York Catholic Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.)

So when he went to Temple for medical school, “it was easy.” After his first year, he married his high school sweetheart, Kathy. And she supported them for the next three years by working as a dress buyer for John Wanamaker’s innovative and famous block-long, 12-story department store in Center City Philadelphia.

At Temple, he enjoyed and was drawn to the “hands-on” approach to doctoring that surgery offered. During his orthopaedic rotation with taskmaster Dr. John Lachman (a clinical test that bears his name is still used to diagnose a torn ACL in the knee), he saw that this was a “happy specialty.” He saw that most patients came with a specific problem that could be fixed. And he saw they could “return to the mainstream of life.” Vince thought that this would be “a very positive way to practice medicine.”

Temple's Lewis Katz School of Medicine
on North Broad Street in Philly (Credit: Temple University)

And he liked the variety of tasks in orthopaedics, as you could, he noted, fix a newborn’s club foot or replace a hip in a 95-year-old. The specialty was, he said, “applied anatomy.”

During summer breaks from college, Vince had worked as an orderly at York Hospital. When he rotated through the ER, he had fun driving the ambulance. And he enjoyed being in the cast room with orthopaedists Dr. John Kruper and Dr. Joseph Danyo--he saw that they seemed to really enjoy what they were doing for patients.

And in 1971, he left Temple and returned to York for his internship. But this was the time of the Vietnam War (1955 -1975). Since Vince was no longer in college or medical school, he no longer had a 2-S student deferment. So he was vulnerable to being drafted into the Army and being sent to Vietnam as a foot soldier. However, the Berry Plan allowed physicians to finish their residency before being required to fulfill a military obligation. But this deferment was awarded by “the luck of the draw.” Vince applied, but wasn’t so lucky.

Considering his options carefully, he decided to enlist in the Navy before he could be called up. He became a Battalion Surgeon with the 2nd Battalion 6th Marine Regiment at Camp Lejune, North Carolina. He served with the Marines (“true professionals”) in the Mediterranean on the USS Guadalcanal (LPH-7), an amphibious helicopter assault ship, from June to December 1973 (the Paris Peace Accord in January 1973 had ended direct U.S. military involvement in the war).

The USS Guadalcanal (Credit: US Navy)

While Vince’s ship was moving through the Mediterranean and docking at well-known strategic spots, his wife, Kathy, was traveling around Europe with friends. They coordinated their efforts, and Dr. Butera had “a girl in every port–but it was the same girl!’

While Vince was in the Service, he applied for an orthopaedic residency. He wanted to go to Pittsburgh to study with Dr. Albert Ferguson (the internationally recognized founding chairman of the department). Time passed, and he received nothing in the mail. So he decided to call the office directly. Dr. Ferguson (who had served in the Marines in WW II) picked up the phone. They talked, and when “Ferg” asked Vince if he wanted to come to Pittsburgh, he (of course) jumped at the chance.

Dr. Ferguson
(Credit: Pitt)

Dr. Butera (who served as Chief Resident) said the training program under Dr. Ferguson was “great.” It was intense, and there was no vacation time. He viewed orthopaedics as “a delicate specialty on hard tissue.” And during his years in Western Pennsylvania, he developed a keen interest in hand surgery. He told me that he, in fact, had “always been fascinated and intrigued by the intricacies of the hand.” And hand surgery, he noted, does not rely on the “mallets, chisels, drills, and saws” found in the classic toolkit of the ortho surgeon.

So when he finished his residency, he did an intensive six-month training program in dedicated hand surgery in Denver.

By age 32, it was time to go into practice. Seeing that York was a “unique and sophisticated medical community” and a teaching hospital, Vince returned to his hometown. Rather than joining the established group, he chose to open his own practice. So he took a two-day course given by the Pennsylvania Medical Society titled “Establishing Yourself in Medical Practice.” They let him know how to hire staff, which billing system to use (3x 5 cards might suffice back then), and which typewriter to purchase (probably an iconic non-jamming IBM Selectric). That was it!

He received “manna from heaven” when he hired a former Catholic nun who had worked in an orthopaedic practice in New Jersey for 17 years. He said that she knew more about orthopaedics than he did. He was on-call 24/7, and he initiated regular ortho conferences for the residents (who greatly appreciated his teaching). He was soon busy, and the first six months were rough as he adjusted to the heavy workload. After that initiation, he felt he could take anything: “Hit me again!” The three-person practice of one doctor, one nurse, and one secretary grew.

Dr. Moritz

And in 1982, after four years of being a solo practitioner, Dr. Butera was joined by Dr. Micky Mortitz (who was a medical student at Pitt during Vince’s residency there). Now with an able partner, Vince felt like he was “on vacation every other night and every other weekend.” Over the next eight years, they added two more excellent surgeons to the group–Dr. Douglas Hofmann and Dr. Nick Pandelidis,

While Vince maintained his special interest in hand surgery, which eventually accounted for about 20% of his work, he performed many hip and knee replacements for people whose joints were injured or simply worn out. He told me that the modern era of hip replacement began with the British surgeon Dr. John Charnley in the early 1960s. Major advances in joint replacement soon followed. (Dr. Butera has two artificial knees himself, having inherited his father’s crooked legs.)

In the early 2000s, the two York orthopaedic practices decided to join forces, and the Orthopaedic and Spine Specialists (OSS) group was created. Dr. Butera was part of this until he retired in 2008 at 62, as the business of medicine was becoming increasingly complicated.

Looking back, Vince felt that he was part of “the great caring and healing profession” of medicine during “the golden years” of private practice. He especially valued the intimate relationship between the physician and the patient found in the exam room or in the OR. His life’s work, he said, came down to “satisfaction and giving back.”

While he was in practice, Kathy, a talented ceramicist who trained in fashion design at the Moore College of Art & Design, was busy raising their daughter, Emily. Since retirement, Vince abandoned the lofty idea of learning to play the saxophone. And no longer able to play tennis, he took up golf (“a ridiculous thing to do,” he noted).

He and Kathy have spent many summers at Chautauqua, the well-known forward-thinking adult educational and cultural center in far western New York. And he has taken courses at the local Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Penn State York and has given several himself on “the intricacies and beauty of the hand.”

Athenaeum Hotel on Lake Chautauqua
(Credit: Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau)

Waxing philosophical, Dr. Butera said that the fully opposable thumb, where the tip of the thumb can touch the tips of the other four fingers, makes us unique in nature. Nine muscles in the hand and forearm are used to produce the thmb's exceedingly complex movements. Aristotle said that “the hand is the tool of tools.” Sir Isaac Newton is quoted as noting that “in the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.” And in the words of Scottish anatomist and surgeon Sir Charles Bell: “And we must confess, it is in the human hand that we have consummation of all perfection as an instrument.”

Physician and primatologist John Napier traced the evolution of the human hand as it developed the form needed to produce a power grip and a precision grip, allowing us to wield clubs and to throw rocks. But these two advanced mechanical abilities may also be used to mold clay into beautiful pottery, to hold and guide the surgeon’s scalpel and sutures to mend a torn tendon, or to repair the worn-out leather sole of an orthopaedic shoe.

The hands of Liborio Butera (Credit: York Daily Record)

Suggested Readings:

1. Napier, John (revised by Russell H. Tuttle). Hands. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1993. (Nearly everything one needs to know--and more--about the anatomy and evolution of the human hand. He states that "the movement of the thumb underlies all the skilled procedures of which the hand is capable." And that finger-thumb opposition "was probably the single most crucial adaptation in our evolutionary history." p.55)

2. Sobinov, A.R., Bensmaia, S.J. "The neural mechanisms of manual dexterity." Nat Rev Neurosci 22, 741–757, 2021. ( In-depth technical review--for those with the required background-- of the complex sensory and motor activities involved in the remarkable functions of the human hand. According to the authors, “The hand is the most versatile manipulative organ in the known universe.”)

3. Wilson, Frank R. The Hand: How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture. New York: Pantheon Books, 1998. (Extensively referenced and far-ranging text building on Bell's and Napier's work, but from the standpoint of a thoughtful clinical neurologist whose focus is on the remarkable "hand-brain" complex.)

4. Young, R. W. "Evolution of the human hand: the role of throwing and clubbing." Journal of Anatomy, 202: 165-174, 2003. (The hypothesis is that the first tools used by our ancient hominid ancestors were hand-held weapons used against adversaries that enhanced the chances for reproductive success.)

By Anita Cherry 5/19/26