Beloved physician, devoted husband and father, humanitarian, author, entertainer, yoga enthusiast, friend extraordinaire.
Yet not even those titles complete the portrait of Dr. Terry A. Gordon.
In large measure that’s because the 62-year-old Richfield resident is still a work in progress. Gordon is a man of many talents, passions, causes and yes, even faces.
That irresistible stew made him the choice for the 2012 Bert A. Polsky Humanitarian Award. He’s the 45th recipient of the honor, named for the former president of former Akron landmark Polsky’s Department Store and founding trustee of Akron Community Foundation.
Gordon will be applauded at 6 p.m. Tuesday at a dinner at the Hilton Akron/Fairlawn.
Tina Boyes, vice president of marketing and communications, Akron Community Foundation, said even though she was not privy to the Polsky Committee’s deliberations, she believes this is why Gordon was chosen:
“His expertise in cardiac care is much more than his profession, it’s his personal crusade. He leverages his time, expertise, finances, and personal and professional connections for a cause much greater than himself or his profession, and he inspires others to do the same.”
Much to the disappointment of his patients, a few years ago he stepped away from his more than 20-year practice at Akron General Medical Center, after a fall from a ladder that injured his neck.
A few surgeries later, he’s doing remarkably well.
Apart from the good medicine he’s dispensed, what Gordon’s patients and others like most about him is his genuinely disarming “You can call me Terry” style, which extends to his graying shoulder-length hair.
Early interest in medicine
The Louisville, Ky., native recalled with clarity the moment he fell in love with medicine. His voice crackled with excitement in the telling.
He was watching a TV show about surgery, not exactly what you expect to be on the viewing list of a 7-year-old.
“This one episode was about a boy named Gussie who had a hole in his heart. They showed a picture of him before the operation. They showed the operation too … I was mesmerized. And they showed him afterwards.
“It was like, ‘Wow!’ After that it was, ‘Get out of my way. I’m going to be a doctor. A cardiologist!’ ”
From that moment on, just about every waking minute was consumed with making that dream come true. He enrolled at Emory University with plans to go to medical school. But his first year intersected with news that his father had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
His mind wasn’t on his studies; he got a D in chemistry and an admonition from his professor to make a new plan. Instead he regained his focus, buckled down and got a degree in psychology with lots of business courses, graduating with a much-improved GPA of 3.25.
He headed to Tulane University to be interviewed for the master’s program for hospital administration, even though it required a GPA of 3.7.
“I was greeted by a professor who was real nasty,” Gordon recalled. “I remember extending my hand and him looking at it for a while before he shook it. Then he quickly wiped his hand.”
Undeterred, Gordon explained why he should be given the green light. He was.
“But when I went for the final orientation and was walking with the hospital administrator between two tall buildings he said to me, ‘Sometimes I forget there are patients in there.’
That discourse frustrated Gordon and served as a wake-up call: “I dropped out before I started and went back home. … The best decision I ever made!”
He began taking pre-med courses at the University of Louisville, where his grades soared to a 4.0 GPA. He was accepted at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. After graduation, he did a rotating internship at the former Doctors Hospital near Massillon, and in emergency medicine at Akron General Medical Center, before completing an invasive cardiology fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. What followed was a two-decade affiliation with Akron General Medical Center. “I loved every single one of my patients, even the difficult ones,” he said.
“When I first went into practice, my wife, Angela, created this thing in crewel that said: ‘Treat each of your patients as a loved one. Feel his pain, his anguish, his turmoil, his suffering. Like it or not you will be loved as you love.’ ”
That mantra would serve not only his patients, but also the community.
Drive for AEDs
Before he retired, Gordon led the charge to get automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in every school in Summit County.
That seed was planted with the 2000 death of Barberton High School teenager Josh Miller. “He [Josh] walked off the football field at Barberton, collapsed and died,” Gordon said. “Josh had a congenital heart defect. Unfortunately the first symptom was his death …
“I watched the videotape … I can still hear the wailing of his mother,” he added, his face awash in sadness.
To help prevent more tragedies, Gordon — at the time president of the Summit County chapter of the American Heart Association — led the charge in raising funds to put AEDs in every middle and high school in Summit County as well as in every police, Highway Patrol and sheriff’s vehicle, at a cost of $3,000 each. He cited Alice Luce, the local Heart Association’s executive director, and AGMC (which donated $89,000) for helping to achieve it.
His work earned him the American Heart Association’s “National Physician of the Year” accolade in 2002.
But a still unsettled Gordon began thinking about the students in surrounding counties, the state and the nation. So he went to Washington, trying to convince congressional leaders that this was an urgent use of taxpayer dollars. But their hearts weren’t in the right place.
Disappointed but not defeated, Gordon enlisted the guidance of prominent local businessman David Brennan, a man he had never met, to help get the AEDs in every Ohio school.
The state of Ohio’s initiative has placed more than 4,470 AEDs in schools covering kindergarten through 12th grade.
“It included public, private, parochial and vocational schools and was funded by our state legislature. The measure passed in bipartisan fashion with near unanimity,” Gordon said.
“Even though the AED is free, one elementary school principal didn’t want it, but was convinced by the school nurse … As it turned out Santa collapsed in front of 700 kids there and was saved by the AED.”
Barberton’s Ken Miller, father of Josh, whose death motivated this campaign, holds Terry Gordon in the “highest regard. It’s hard to put into words. But he’s been much more than I could have ever imagined. He’s a friend and a remarkable human being. And I don’t say that lightly.
“He takes the good from everything and he has an open heart to everything, everyone,” Miller continued. “You don’t run into someone like him very often. I know I haven’t.”
Gordon’s Ohio initiative impressed U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Copley Township) so much that she has introduced legislation — the Josh Miller HEARTS Act — three times to provide federal funding to place AEDs in every school nationwide.
“Betty and [Sen.] Sherrod [Brown] are still trying,” Gordon said, adding, “The travesty here is that since Sutton first introduced the bill in the House, 206 children have died of cardiac arrest in our schools needlessly.
“Yet all the while our children — our most precious resources — are unprotected, there are AEDs on the walls of just about every hallway in Congress!”
Doc’s rocking side
Gordon’s less serious, but still important pursuit is United Way of Summit County’s immensely popular Docs Who Rock fundraiser, which he co-founded.
The ninth annual physician talent show and competition, patterned after TV’s American Idol, is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday at E.J. Thomas Hall.
While the professional talent runs the gamut from vocal and instrumental solos to bands of all genres, the highlight, perennial fans will tell you, is the master of ceremonies — Dr. Terry Gordon. He has performed as Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, the Village People (all of them at once) and Lady Gaga.
He tells the story, breaking up laughing, about one of his elderly heart patients and her husband finding him in the aisle at a Goodwill store, trying on a sequined dress over his clothes for one of his acts. “Is that you, Dr. Gordon?” she asked.
While Docs Who Rock is a crowd-pleaser and a chance for patients to see a different side of their docs, Gordon said his mother “doesn’t like seeing me in women’s clothes,” he joked.
Who will he play this year? He’s not saying.
‘Thrown a curveball’
But life isn’t always belly laughs. Sometimes, without warning, it veers off a cliff.
Gordon knows that all too well. A very personal journey led him to write a book, No Storm Lasts Forever: Transforming Suffering into Insight (Hay House, $12.95).
Tyler, his only son, now 24, was involved in a life-threatening car accident in 2009. He survived, but suffered a spinal-cord injury that left him a quadriplegic.
“Life was perfect!” the wounded healer wrote. “Our three daughters — Mattie-Rose, Laila and Britt — had graduated from college with degrees in education. Our son, Tyler, was enrolled at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, having just completed his sophomore year studying business.
“Then just when we thought we had it all figured out, we were thrown a curveball. Life as we knew it came crashing down.
“Crap,” he said, “happens to everybody … Life has a 100 percent mortality rate … It’s what we do with what happens that makes all the difference …
“When I first began the process of expressing in words my journey, I soon found that one thought would trigger another,” he wrote. “If you are looking for a story with an ending in which everyone lives happily ever after, I would suggest that you close this book right away and try to get your money back. Because you see, our story is far from complete. If, on the other hand, you find yourself searching for hope in the midst of whatever tragedy you find yourself in, my sincere prayer is that No Storm Lasts Forever will help you find what it is that we all seek: shalom, salaam, peace.”
No better medicine than that.
Jewell Cardwell can be reached at 330-996-3567 or jcardwell@thebeaconjournal.com