Welcome to Friendly Foot Care

Today Friendly Foot Care is a team of more than 10 people providing state-of-the art foot and ankle care in a custom-designed facility on Broadway in Crown Point, Indiana. The practice helps alleviate heel, foot and ankle problems for thousands of people each year. The story of Friendly Foot Care began more than a quarter century ago and hundreds of miles away.

Dr. Nirenberg grew up the oldest of three children in Toronto, Canada. He had working-class parents and as a teenager did an assortment of odd jobs, including shoveling snow-covered driveways and performing magic shows for children. There were few luxuries. His parents did not have the connections that are usually associated with getting into medical/podiatry school.

He became interested in becoming a podiatrist when he was in his early twenties studying pure mathematics at the University of Western Ontario. At the time, his father, who had been plagued with knee pain, told him that a podiatrist had cured his knee pain by making him custom-made arch supports (orthotics). By improving the mechanics of how his father walked,the podiatrist had alleviated his knee pain. Nirenberg met the podiatrist and became hooked on podiatry.

Nirenberg studied podiatric medicine in Chicago. After graduating as a podiatrist (Doctor of Podiatric Medicine), he furthered his skills by completing an intense residency in foot & ankle surgery.

Dr. Nirenberg opened his office in 1992. He could only afford to rent two small treatment rooms at the back of a busy doctor’s office, which was located on 5th Avenue in Gary. Dr. Nirenberg had no employees and no patients, and started the practice by making house calls. As he visited patients in their homes, he found himself listening to them as much as treating them. It was a skill he would use his entire career. Soon the practice grew, and along the way, he became an American citizen—a privilege he values highly.

In 2006, Dr. Nirenberg opened his current office, a beautiful facility with wide hallways to accommodate handicapped patients and equipped with the latest foot & ankle technology.

Dr. Nirenberg has never forgotten where he came from and continues to show his appreciation to the Friendly Foot Care team members and his patients. Each day he strives to provide the friendliest, warmest, most thorough foot & ankle care possible.

In 2008, Dr. Lacey joined the Friendly Foot Care team. Dr. Lacey grew up in Boston, and while he was a teenager being imprinted on the Bruins, Patriots, and Red Sox, he witnessed his father nearly lose his foot to diabetes. After a podiatrist saved his father’s foot, Dr. Lacey made the decision to go into podiatry.

Dr. Lacey studied podiatric medicine in New York City and after graduating, went on to complete an extensive residency in foot & ankle surgery. He worked in Chicago for several years and then joined the practice. Dr. Lacey shares the “Friendly Foot Care” vision of treating each patient with kindness, at times mixed with humor, while providing the best foot & ankle care possible.

Friendly Foot Care team leaders Diana, Krystal and Yolanda put their hearts into making sure the office’s dozens of necessary day to day tasks and responsibilities are completed. This is not always easy and involves everything from convincing an insurance company to pay for a needed service for one of our patients to making sure we have a patient’s chart ready when he or she arrives to see one of the doctors.

These three remarkable women are committed to giving their best, most competent, most friendly service to our patients, each other, and the other members of our team every day.

Friendly Foot Care’s other team members include Jennifer, our hard-working and caring, Community Outreach Director, Kenya, our friendly Medical Assistant, and Barb, our warm and detail-oriented Insurance/billing Assistant.

When people ask what makes Friendly Foot Care different from other podiatry practices, we would like to believe, it is our people—they truly care.

Our Friendly Foot Care team strives to improve our service, technology and foot & ankle medical therapies, techniques and procedures. We look forward to the on-going important privilege of providing patients, their friends and family members, and the Northwest Indiana community with the warmest, friendliest, most-advanced… Quite simply, the BEST foot & ankle care.