Meet the Physicians at Pediatric Alliance!
William Fiore Coppula, M.D., F.A.A.P. – Pediatric Alliance — Arcadia Division (10 years).
I was born in Pittsburgh, at West Penn Hospital, and lived in the South Hills, in Scott Township (Birdland) until the 6th grade. My parents then moved my three sisters, my brother, and me to Murrysville/Export. I graduated from Franklin Regional High School.
My Mom worked the night shift as a post-partum/newborn nursery nurse. My Dad was a petroleum engineer who worked for a natural gas company. Dad was the first one in his family to go to college – to Pitt on the GI Bill. His mother came over on the boat from Italy.
For my first year of college I attended Union College in Schenectady, NY. I had a pretty decent scholarship to play football, and I also walked on and started for the freshman basketball team. I liked Union — the first two weeks there, Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand were on campus filming “The Way We Were.” After my freshman year, my Dad was promoted and transferred to West Virginia (good news!), but his new salary disqualified me from my scholarship, which was based on financial need (bad news!). Fortunately, I was able to transfer to West Virginia University.
WVU was home for the next seven years. I graduated with a BA degree in Mathematics and then spent the next four years in Morgantown at the WVU (Byrd) School of Medicine. After deciding on Pediatrics, I came back to Pittsburgh to complete a pediatric residency at Mercy Hospital.
I married my high school sweetheart my last year in undergrad. Kathie supported me through med school and residency, working as a nurse. Later, she went back to school, double-majored in English and Psychology, and then got a Masters Degree in Fine Arts. Kathie writes fiction — and has had some short stories published — but she has always put her career on hold to help raise our one son.
We are lucky and thankful to have our son, Nicholas, who was born in 1988. He still lives in Pittsburgh and dances professionally at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (http://www.pbt.org). Please check out our great ballet company and support them when you can!
As you can see, I am very proud of my wife and son! I also have three sisters and one brother. Even though we’re scattered throughout the U.S., we’re all still pretty close.
I love sports. I thought I would take Roberto Clemente’s place in right field for the Bucs until I fell in love with basketball. That game gets tough to play as you get older! I still play a slow game, after recovering from an Achilles tendon rupture 19 years ago (we’ll see if Kobe can come back from that as well).
In my free time I have watched and learned a lot about ballet. I like all kinds of music from alternative to zydeco…but still think the Beatles, Stones, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Billie Joel, and others from ‘60s and ‘70s were great. I love Pittsburgh and all it has to offer, but I also enjoy traveling and learning.
I have always had good hair and hated to waste time getting haircuts. One of our patients has alopecia totalis. She had no hair but she did have a beautiful wig that inspired me to grow my own hair to donate. Locks of Love collects hair and makes wigs for children with medically triggered baldness. Some of my own patients were donating their hair to the cause, so I figured that if a young kid could do it, so could I! And I would only need to get my haircut once every two years! My hair is not as good as it used to be, but I’m happy that Locks of Love can still use it!
I still enjoy seeing patients, trying to give them the best individualized care I can while still learning from them all the time. Our Arcadia office has been a great place to work and our staff and providers keep everything going smoothly. I’m proud of Pediatric Alliance and how it tries to give all of our divisions the ability to give high quality, adaptable care to all patients in a difficult and rapidly changing medical climate. It is difficult to balance all the competing needs but our administrative team has done a great job.