It is seldom that a young physician entering upon the practice of his profession achieves instantaneous and striking success. The path that leads to a large and lucrative practice is in nearly every case a weary and a tortuous one. But to all rules there are exceptions. The young physician whose life we are to discuss in this sketch, Doctor Carl O. Bernhardi, although one of the younger of Rock Island County’s physicians, has, nevertheless, in the few brief years that he has practiced his calling, attained an eminence that places him well in the van as a prominent and successful member of the medical profession.
He was born January 3, 1880, his parents being Dr. Carl and Mrs. Zoe Julia Bernhardi. A sketch of the life of Dr. Carl Bernhardi appears upon another page of this volume. Dr. Carl O. Bernhardi’s early education was obtained in the Rock Island German School, the Rock Island Public School and the High School. After graduating from this latter institution he entered the University of Illinois, where he pursued a specially selected course adapted as a preliminary to the medical course which he intended to follow later. Upon the completion of his course in the University of Illinois he entered Rush Medical College at Chicago in 1898, graduating with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1902. After his graduation he served as house physician for two years in the Presbyterian Hospital at Chicago. This experience was a most valuable one, enabling the young physician to observe many and varied medical and surgical cases, as well as to come in contact with some of the most skilled and prominent physicians and surgeons in the United States, and to note their methods of diagnosis and treatment in difficult and baffling cases.
In 1904 Dr. Bernhardi entered the medical field at Rock Island, where his father had been in practice for many years. As has been said, his success here was instantaneous and complete. Being naturally endowed with a genial nature and agreeable manners he made hosts of friends and the extent of his practice rapidly increased. He is the attending physician for the Old Ladies’ Home, recently established here.
In politics Dr. Bernhardi follows in the steps of his father, and gives his allegiance to the platform and principles of the Republican party. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and the Rock Island Lodge of Elks, Illinois State Medical Society, Rock Island County Medical Society and the Iowa and Illinois District Medical Society. He is a learned and skillful physician, and a young man in every way entitled to the admiration and respect of all who know him.