Dr. Tammy Gutierrez (Dr. G)

QUICK BIO:

• M.D. Case Western Reserve University, Graduated with distinction May, 2002
• Family Practice Residency at Stanislaus Family Practice, Modesto, CA 2002-2005
• Co-chief Resident 2004-2005
• Ohio State University School of Medicine Faculty 2005-2008
• Associate Director of Patient Centered Medicine at the medical school
• Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Medicine, Rardin Family Practice
• Excellence in Teaching Award 2008, All Star Precepting award 2007, Outstanding Teaching Award 2007
• Emerging Leader in Family Medicine, STFM Oct 2006.
• Family Physician at UH Orwell Medical Center, 2009-2018
• Institute for Functional Medicine Functional Medicine Training 2016-2017
• Mom of 2 beautiful girls, Lia and Emma
• Wife to Steven Gutierrez, art professor at Cleveland Institute of Art

MY JOURNEY:
Before you join me on your exciting health journey, I’d like to share with you some of my journey, so that you understand how I came to be here today:

Though I had lots of exciting dreams as a child, I was always drawn to careers that involved helping people, solving mysteries, learning and sharing that knowledge with the world.  When my great grandmother died of Alzheimer’s disease while I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to cure Alzheimer’s.  Off I went to college to major in physics and unravel the mysteries of the brain.  To better my understanding, I spent summers working with dementia patients and working in a research lab.  Research was not for me, but helping the patients and families face their daily challenges was my calling. 

With that new destination in mind, I headed off to medical school, determined to help dementia patients and their families preserve their dignity and quality of life one patient at a time.  In medical school, I found that I loved ALL the patients, not just dementia patients, and I was fascinated by the way the body worked. I chose family medicine, where I could be a part of the lives of all kinds of people and  embrace the whole person at every stage of the life journey.  I finished my training and set out to be the best family doctor I could be, with a new baby girl to make my life complete. 

Life has a way of derailing even the best-laid plans, though, and when my daughter was 4, I developed a very rare form of vascular cancer.  Through my healing process I first truly learned the limitations of all I had been taught in medical school.  The needs of a patient are much more complex and varied than I had fully grasped until I, myself, was a patient.  I reached outside of traditional medical practice to help me not just survive my cancer, but to create greater health both personally and for my patients. 

Years later, recovered from cancer, my second child came to deepen my knowledge further.  She had extreme allergic colitis, with 12 separate food sensitivities that forced me to expand my understanding of nutrition and lifestyle as powerful tools to create health.  Once again, my personal experiences enabled me to become a much better doctor as well, opening new perspectives on how to provide care and promote health for my patients. 

This was welcome knowledge, because over the years I had seen my patients and the community getting sicker and sicker, at younger and younger ages.  Diseases that were for “old” people (type 2 diabetes, shingles) were presenting in 16 year olds, and >80% of my patients had some type of allergies or sensitivities to something – a far cry from the 15% I was taught in medical school a scant 20 years before.  I was deeply concerned and frustrated that my role as a doctor was becoming one of disease management and prescription writer rather than healing. 

In my search for answers I happened upon a small conference about functional cardiology.  Here was an approach that looked deeper, at the root causes of illness.  The goal was to enable the patient to get well, not just take more medications to address a laundry list of symptoms or complaints.  I was hooked, and I spent the next several years completing my functional medicine training and learning how to incorporate these approaches into my medical practice.  Unfortunately, the time constraints and administrative structure of traditional practice did not provide the time and space to do this fully, so in May 2018 I left my family practice to create an environment where I could really help people heal.  I realized that patients do not need someone to tell them what to do, or hand them the answers, but to partner with them and guide them toward finding their own best answers.  My dream here, at Dr.G Path to Wellness, is to empower patients to understand their journey, so that they can take charge of their own health and forge a path forward to a full and healthy life.