The Tipton Family Donor Story

Hi my name is Nicole Coil and I have been a trustee of the Foundation board of the hospital for approximately ten years.

I’m Martha Tipton. I’m the widow of Dr. John Tipton. We came here in 1974, so 49 years ago and I taught at Marietta College for 29 years.

His patients would say that he was a very good doctor, he was very conscientious, he conducted medical interviews with the patients in really in depth form and then he sent out reports to the referring physicians that would be several pages long. So, getting the information correct and being thorough was his hallmark.

We were over in Athens and he wanted to move over to Marietta to centralize the practice because if we didn’t do that someone else would come to Marietta and he would be on the fringe. So, in Marietta he was in that focal point because he had as many patients in West Virginia as he did from Ohio.

After he retired he experienced a great void because he enjoyed interacting with physicians. He certainly missed his patients and by going to the tumor board he felt that he was still a part of the action and he loved going there and he went every week if we were in town and we were in town most of the time.

Nicole: Well for me it’s a great opportunity to kind of continue the legacy that I think my father has made in the community. I feel that the Foundation does wonderful work to be able to foster better health for the citizens of our area and the surrounding state as well of West Virginia. It was very important to him that, as my mother said, that his patients received the greatest care possible. And he also really loved this area. He grew up in the plains and spent the majority of his life in Marietta. He was really a homebody at heart. He loved to be here and didn’t really want to go anywhere else. So, he understood his patients felt the same way too.