By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

PARK HILLS - Retired orthopedic surgeon Dr. Donald Norbert Berning died Feb. 2 of injuries sustained in a car accident in Palm Beach, Fla. The Park Hills resident was 83.

"He was a rare person, and not just because I knew him so well," said Jane Looney Berning, his wife of 59 years. "Everyone who knew him said so."

Until he died, "people came up and said, 'I was a patient when I was a child and I didn't think I'd ever walk again but you fixed me up,'" she said. "We could hardly go anyplace that someone didn't come up to him and say, 'Oh, do you remember me?' And most of the time he did.

"His patients didn't think they had a doctor, they thought they had a friend."

A Cincinnati native, Dr. Berning graduated from St. Xavier High School in 1938. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati and a medical degree from UC's College of Medicine.

He had just begun serving a residency in general surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital when he was called to active Army duty near the end of World War II. He returned to Good Sam to complete his surgical training after serving in military hospitals in Thomasville, Ga., and Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Dr. Berning then served three years of residency in orthopedic surgery at UC, Jewish Hospital and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery, he was on staff at all of Cincinnati's hospitals and was consulting orthopedic surgeon at Margaret Mary Hospital in Batesville, Ind., until his retirement in 1987.

He also taught in the department of orthopedic surgery at UC College of Medicine.

Dr. Berning loved to fly and had a private pilot's license. He was a member of Silver Wings and the Cincinnati Soaring Society.

He was also a member of the Cincinnati Club.

Besides his wife of 59 years, Dr. Berning is survived by two sisters, Margaret Wais of Wyoming and Mary Patricia Wood of Mount Airy; and a brother, Richard J. Berning of Bridgetown.

Services have been held. Burial was at St. Mary's Cemetery in Fort Mitchell.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com