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Norman Chernik, 77, of Bay Shore, died Feb. 23 of...

Norman Chernik, 77, of Bay Shore, died Feb. 23 of complications from an autoimmune disease known as dermatomyositis at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. Credit: Handout

Norman Chernik had no money when he was accepted to St. Louis Medical School in the early 1960s -- not even enough for a train ticket. He stuffed a duffle bag with clothes and hitched from his home in Los Angeles, family members said Tuesday.

When he got to St. Louis, he wrote a rent check, but knew it would bounce so he went to a local bank for a loan but was turned down. The bank president, Robert J. Gaddy, overheard Chernik's plight, and wrote him a check for a few thousand dollars, which Chernik eventually repaid in full, according to the family.

Chernik, 77, of Bay Shore, who died Feb. 23 of complications from an autoimmune disease known as dermatomyositis at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, ultimately, became a neurologist.

In 1985, he founded South Shore Neurologic Associates PC, a multidisciplinary comprehensive care center that now also has locations in Patchogue, Riverhead and Southampton, and employs about 150 people, said Chernik's wife, Anne Dunne, who had been administrator of the facility.

"He was very unassuming," Dunne said. "Most people didn't know he was a doctor. But he was very passionate about his work, too."

Chernik retired three years ago from running South Shore Neurologic. Aside from treating neurological disorders, the facility has a pain management division and a center to treat multiple sclerosis.

Before starting South Shore, Chernik was a neuropathologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering for a decade, ending in 1981, when he became a private practitioner and later founded his own neurology center.

Chernik was born in Los Angeles. He dropped out of a California military school in 11th grade and joined the Army, where he served as an infantryman for two years in the late 1950s. He returned to Los Angeles and graduated from UCLA in 1961 with a degree in philosophy.

Then he hitched to St. Louis. Years after he became a doctor, Chernik established the Robert J. Gaddy Fund at the medical school to help students in need, his wife said.

Bert Brodsky, chief executive of Port Washington-based information-technology company Sandata Technologies LLC, was a friend of Chernik's for 30 years, and a consultant to his business.

"He was brilliant," Brodsky said. "He was ahead of his time. He was concerned about you as a patient."

Aside from his wife, Chernik is survived by a son, Noah, 13, and a daughter, Alannah, 10, both of whom live at home; two grown daughters from a previous marriage, Aria Chernik and Abra Chernik, both of North Carolina; and one granddaughter.

Services were Monday at the Chapey & Sons Funeral Home in East Islip; cremation followed.

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