37 Uncle Claude drove a typical black Ford coupe. “In the back of his car he had this delivery table that was a fold-up delivery table. He told me that when I got old enough he would teach me how to use that,” Tinsley jokes, “But we never got that far.” After completing four years at a military academy prep school in Columbia, Tennessee, Tinsley entered Vanderbilt University, where he would stay 15 years, earning undergradu-ate, graduate and medical degrees and where he served his surgical residency. “The first operation I saw, I don’t know what they were doing but it was something involved, and whatever the condition was, it was corrected by the operation and one week later the patient left the hospital whole and got on with their life,” Tinsley explains. During his third year in medical school, he made the decision to pursue surgery. “Boy, that’s the deal,” Tinsley recalls thinking of his career choice. “I don’t want to spend my days dealing with chronic diseases that you can’t heal.” Where to practice and how to specialize was a decision Tinsley shared with his high school sweetheart, now wife, Betty. “I didn’t make very good grades my first year in medi-cal school because I was visiting her every weekend. We figured if we were going to do this thing we needed to pool our resources so we got married after my first year,” Tinsley explains. “We worked our way through medical school and she’s been a major part of this journey.” The Tinsleys learned of Wilmington and New Hanover Regional Medical Center’s plans to open a new hospital from Vanderbilt classmate Dr. Bertram Williams Sr. In 1967, they chose to move to Wilmington to begin working for the newly-built medical center equipped with state-of-the-art technology. “It had all of the equipment that I had trained on that smaller hospitals wouldn’t have,” Tinsley explains. “A smaller hospital wouldn’t have the specialties like a larger hospital. I wanted to do thoracic surgery. To do that you need cardiolo-gists and anesthesiologists and other people to support that, and you had that here.” NHRMC featured an emergency room, a fully equipped recovery room and an intensive care unit. One year later, in 1968, Tinsley, Williams and Dr. Horace Moore opened Wilmington Surgical Associates. “We helped initiate microscopic surgery. There are many surgical procedures that came into being that we promoted and put into use here,” Tinsley explains. His wife, Betty, was also very involved in the develop-ment of NHRMC. Because Betty had been by Tinsley’s side Top: First office, Wilmington Surgical Associates, 1968. Bottom: With Betty before they were married, 1952. www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
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