We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and Dr. Cammisa is one of those giants.
What drives
him is innovation, research and thought.
He never stops educating.
He feels that anything he can do to contribute to what HSS continues to evolve
into is part of his mission.
Yes, remember him as a resident, very energetic, enthusiastic, very bright.
He had the vision to bring talented people here to HSS.
He was an amazing teacher, an amazing mentor,
and really somebody that you could try to model your surgical career after.
What struck me the most about him, attention to detail.
I've witnessed him come in the morning and prepped for the surgery for the day,
like it was an examination. Thierry
Marnet is a pioneer in spine surgery.
Dr.
Cammisa went over and worked with him and collaborated with him and brought back his
research and presented it to the FDA. Frank
Was one of the early US surgeons to adopt, vet,
and test that technology.
Motion preservation is now, 20 years later, a very common part of spine surgery.
He's always thinking towards tomorrow.
I've known him for well over 25 years and have always been amazed at the
incredible amount of skill that he has in the operating room,
but also the incredible amount of compassion that he has when working with his
patients in the office.
Had this condition that came out of nowhere. I was in agony, literal agony.
You ask a few people, you know, and if you have some medical connections,
and the only thing you want to have happen is that the same name keeps coming
up, and that's what happened. Everybody was pointing to, you know,
true North, which was Dr. Cammisa. He was immediately assuring. He said,
this is like almost non-back surgery.
This is as non-invasive back surgery as you could possibly have. But
this is why you need it and this is what's causing you the pain.
He took the time, yeah, to really listen.
I was free of pain instantaneously and it was like a miracle,
but to be a hundred percent honest,
I'm looking all around and like a lot of docs,
I know there's all the sports figures, you know,
and all the famous sports figures and I don't know any of them.
And then I saw Walter Cronkite's picture. And the minute I saw Walter
Cronkite's picture, I literally looked at him and I said, well,
you're the doc for me.
He's trained over 130 spine surgeons as fellows over the
time of his leadership here at HSS,
and those surgeons have gone on to become chiefs of departments,
chiefs of services, all over the world. And
I remember feeling that first, you know,
couple of months with him in fellowship,
heavy responsibility and understanding for the first time what a commitment
to become a spine surgeon means. When a patient walks into the door.
From that time forward,
he feels absolutely responsible to do whatever he can to help the patient and
their spine condition.
I'm Tyler Peck and I'm a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet.
There was one morning where I woke up and I had really severe pain
down my arm.
It was the day of opening night when a doctor called me to read
the MRI and said,
we found out that I had a really severe herniated disc.
Immediately my next question was like, I'm gonna be able to dance again, right?
I went to eight different doctors. Dr.
Cammisa was the last one.
He took the time to explain to me what was going on and saying,
I like to kind of wait with my professional athletes.
I don't know if this is going to heal, but I've seen it happen.
Remember being so nervous the day I went back after that,
like three months of waiting and he looked at the images with me
and it had reabsorbed a little.
I just don't have enough words in my vocabulary to describe how grateful I am to
him.
I hope that he would be really proud and happy to know that he played a huge
role in getting me back on stage.
What he does is so much bigger than just one individual person,
but as you always explained to me, it's a team.
When I worked with the Giants for 12 years,
Frank was also helping out as a consultant for spine injury.
The spine is an important part of what we take care of on the Giants,
and we needed somebody with real expertise who had an interest in the athletic
side of it.
This being a collision sport, there can be catastrophic injury.
The injury that brought me to Dr. Cammisa was in my fourth year.
I've been having some issues with my neck, you know, for, you know,
a number of years, but nothing too serious.
But then there was a few hits in a row where it,
it was numb and what came back was that there was severe spinal stenosis,
there was degeneration in my neck and there were some other issues.
Everything was in question my entire career. When I got to Dr.
Cammisa's office and felt like there was a connection there and I felt like he
was gonna try to exhaust every single option. Just
the calm and the assuredness, really the knowledge that Dr.
Cammisa has for athletes is incredible.
This man has spent his entire life studying and understanding, you know,
these parts of the body and really cares. And so I,
I felt confident that if he was gonna put me back out there on the field,
I was gonna be okay.
It was a very special ride. The career was extended.
I was able to be on the field and and win a championship.
That opportunity was life changing for me. Dr.
Paisa is definitely part of the New York Giants and one of the reasons why we
were able to accomplish two Super Bowl victories in the nine years that I was
there.
Frank Cammisa is someone who has committed their life to
taking care of patients.
He cares deeply about quality and cares deeply
about how the organization is advancing.
To be in a competitive environment with tons of peers and colleagues doing the
same thing and to really stand out speaks volumes, he has excelled. My
biggest hope for my dad would be for people to really sit back and be able to
look at the human being that he is.
He's highly motivated to do the best he can,
and he happens to have a lot ability. So his best is very good.
Frank Cammisa's, greatest contribution to spine surgery in the field.
The legacy he's created here at HSS to create what has become one of the premier
spine services in the world.
People like Dr. Cammisa are what make our institution great.
He's really paved the path forward.
When you think of where spine surgery was 25 years ago and where it's today,
he's a role model for people. Incredibly successful, intelligent, talented,
compassionate, and skillful doctor. Without having people like him,
HSS wouldn't be where it is.
We would not be able to accomplish all the things that we need to going forward
into the future.