While Dr. Jerry Luck was known for being an excellent clinician, it’s the influence he had on the people around him that is being most remembered.
Luck, a professor of medicine and cardiologist at Penn State Hershey, passed away May 18 at the age of 68 after a bike accident in North Carolina.
“Jerry Luck was a great clinician and an even better person,” said Dr. Larry Sinoway, director, Penn State Hershey Heart and Vascular Institute. “So many over the past week have said, in one way or another, that they wished they could be more like him. This, to me, is evidence of his impact and greatness. It is so very sad when we lose someone so good and so vital.”
Luck joined Penn State Hershey in 1985 as director of cardiac electrophysiology. While he left in 2006 to private practice, he still taught here and returned as a clinician last year.
Dr. Gerald Naccarelli, chief, Division of Cardiology, knew Luck since 1981, when both were in Texas – Luck as an assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and Naccarelli at his first job at University of Texas Medical School.
“He was an instant favorite of the students, residents and fellows because of his ability to teach them at the highest level,” said Naccarelli, who worked closely with Luck as heart rhythm specialists. “Jerry was one of the most caring physicians I have ever known. His patients and staff held in him in the highest regard. He was my father’s cardiologist before my dad died of cancer. All of us here at Hershey will miss him.”
Read more reflections on Luck in this Penn State Medicine article.