Brunswick doctor offers four decades of dedication

MEDINA — Dr. Thomas Tulisiak has been a staple in the Medina County medical community for nearly four decades. Dating back to when he opened Brunswick Family Practice on Pearl Road in 1983, all the way to his extensive time and experience with the Cleveland Clinic Medina Hospital, where he currently serves as a family physician, the Medina County community and care for his patients has always been his top priority. As Tulisiak, 65, now prepares for his official retirement at the end of this month, nearly a year later than he originally intended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he has taken the opportunity to reflect on his 38 years in medicine and what he is most looking forward to in retirement. "My patients and I have been having tears in our eyes in our last visits," Tulisiak said. "I've been so close to them for so many years. I'm humbled by their confidence in me and I feel privileged to be involved in their healthcare for so many years. That's probably the most difficult thing that I'm going to miss. Being involved in not only their healthcare but their personal lives." Tulisiak established such a level of trust with families and members of the community that, in the case of one family, he treated six generations of family members with the matriarch being "about 103 or 104" at her death and a "youngster" as the most recent patient. "Being a primary care doctor, especially family medicine, you have an opportunity to experience the sad times and the joyful times in their families," Tulisiak said. "You celebrate the births and you, in some ways, it's not celebrating the deaths but you're memorializing the impact that patients' family members have had on their lives." Tulisiak said a woman came to him and said that there were three people that she loved. Those three being her husband, her priest and him. In many ways, he said the connections developed leave both parties feeling like family members. Judy, Tulisiak's wife of 38 years, said she has always felt a great source of pride for her husband, seeing him as passionate as he is about being a family physician. "I feel great joy, too, in the reward that he feels he has from having the privilege of caring for so many people," she said. "It's a joy for me to see him share with me that he's had such close relationships with so many people throughout these years. I'm very proud of him and I'm very excited to spend our retirement years together." COVID-19 and a delayed retirement Just three months before he had originally planned to retire in June 2020, Ohio and the country was hit with COVID-19. Rather than leave his healthcare family behind, Tulisiak decided to stay on to help with the pandemic and patient care. Throughout his experiences with the virus, the doctor called it "one of the most significant and worrisome things I've seen in my career." "This pandemic came along and we were all gearing up to have this huge surge of sick patients in the hospital and in the ICU," he said. "And there was a significant surge, and thank goodness it didn't get as bad as it could have gotten. We were planning for that and part of the plans were to bring some of the additional physicians in the offices to help with in-patient care but they also wanted to protect the older physicians like me." Because of his age and susceptibility to COVID-19, Tulisiak was unable to be on the floor directly helping patients. Instead, he stuck around and helped with outpatient practice, where he believes he had the first COVID-19 patient in the hospital. "I saw this individual in the office (in early March) and there weren't screenings being done until April," Tulisiak said. "He was sick. His oxygenation was low, he was coughing, he was weak and we made him a direct admit to the hospital. He ended up turning positive for COVID." That patient went on to live but like countless other healthcare providers, Tulisiak has had several patients die from COVID-19 and has also seen up close and personal the long-term effects the disease has on patients. Scientific start Tulisiak, whose father was an aerospace engineer, has always had an interest in science. Following in the footsteps of his brother, he decided to enter the pre-med track at University of Notre Dame in 1973 before ultimately getting his doctorate from the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo in 1980. It wasn't just his brother that attracted him to medicine, however. "One of the things that directed me to it, also, was the experience we had with a physician when I was probably in my early teens when there was a very serious medical emergency in my family," Tulisiak said. "The compassion this surgeon had for our entire family, caring for our family member, how he not only dealt with the family member but the entire family … that surgeon was an extremely impressive individual. "I think that was something that was always in the back of my mind, wanting me to go into pre-med." A few years after starting Brunswick Family Practice in a Pearl Road office building, Tulisiak joined with Dr. Marc Williams in 1987. Three years later, they were joined by Dr. Bob Cain and three years after that, Dr. Mark Meacham joined on in 1993. Dr. Tim Miller also joined the group in 1997, when the practice merged with the Cleveland Clinic. The practice and building are still standing, with one of Tulisiak's daughters, Alexandra, serving as a nurse practitioner. Williams, Cain and Miller are currently practicing at the Cleveland Clinic Brunswick Family Health Center while Meacham is currently with Southwest General Health Center in Brunswick. "Tom is such a dedicated physician," Williams said in an email. "I learned from him to be dedicated to your patients and go that extra mile. His patients understood and appreciated his caring attitude. They love Dr. Tom." Cain shared similar thoughts, saying in an email that over the last 30 years Tulisiak has been "a tremendous mentor, colleague and friend." "He is one of the most dedicated physicians I have ever met and has served his patient and community with unwavering compassion," Cain said. "Tom is an example of how one person truly can make his community a better place." Cleveland Clinic career Once Tulisiak and his fellow doctors merged with the Cleveland Clinic, he was immediately named medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Brunswick Family Health Center, a role in which he served until 2002, before once again holding the position from 2008 to 2011. Between 1990 and 1994, he spent time as chairman on the ethics committee, utilization review committee and of the department of medicine, all for the Medina Hospital. In 2009, he was promoted to vice president of medical operation at Medina Hospital and held that position until 2011 when he was named hospital president. In that position and throughout his entire career, Tulisiak has lived by one of the core Jesuit values which is, "Men and women for others." During his time as president, Tulisiak said he was encouraged by the people around him that were always willing to take an extra step for others. "I feel like the people here in Medina County do that," Tulisiak said. "I notice that in our community, I noticed that in the hospital when I was president. The staff was always striving to get to the next level and improve patient satisfaction and quality of care. Those six years were really enjoyable because of the staff that was always interested to take the next step to move forward." In 2017, Tulisiak stepped down from hospital president to return to family medicine. His successor and current hospital president, Dr. Richard Shewbridge, praised Tulisiak for his nearly 40 years of service to the community and the hospital. "Dr. Tulisiak has been of service to Medina County families for over 30 years in many ways," he said in an email. "Family physician, assistant coroner, hospital president and more. He has been a trusted leadership mentor to me for many years." Retirement reflections As he prepares to begin a new chapter of traveling and "dating again" with Judy, Tulisiak thought back to the people and experiences that he's had during his 38-year career. Among those that stuck out the most to him are the hospital's nursing staff – which he called the "true angels" of patient care – and the administration team he had as hospital president, which he said helped make his job much easier and more enjoyable. He also once again thought back to the six-generation family that he served and talked about delivering babies during his first three years practicing medicine. Above all else, he reiterated that he was "humbled" and "privileged" to be involved in the medical care of so many people. His advice for upcoming medical professionals? Listen and be compassionate. "The thing I always mention to medical students when they're rotating through the office with me or the residents when I precept them is, 'Number one is: Listen,'" Tulisiak said. "Listen to what the patient is saying because you can get the most information from a patient's history. That's probably the most important thing. "Compassion. Realize that you need to treat your patient just like you would treat your family members. You can never go wrong doing that. You think about it, your family members are the dearest people to you. If you treat your patients like that, you're going to pay the closest attention and do the best possible job you can." Contact reporter Jack Kopanski at (330) 721-4063 or jkopanski@medina-gazette.com.