WESTFIELD – It’s been three decades since John Tuohey has returned back to his home town of Westfield. A 1972 graduate of Westfield High School, Tuohey has spent the last 30 years excelling at perfecting his craft; health care ethics.
Tuhoey is seen leading a mass at a parish in the Oregon area. (Photo courtesy of Ed Langlois)
Since 1998, Tuohey was the first holder of the endowed chair in Applied Health Care ethics at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland. Tuohey’s work revolved around internal medicine, family practice, surgical and pharmacy residency programs, general ethics education for staff at hospitals, as well as offering help to clinical and organizational ethics consultation services.
With all of the different responsibilities that Tuohey had in his career, he believed that his overall work had a clear importance.
“I always felt like I was helping changing the way doctors did practices,” said Tuohey. “I really felt like I was shaping the future of health care.”
One of the more difficult challenges that Tuohey had to face throughout his career was when doctors at the hospital would be having an issue with a patient and would want to release them from their care since they’re not following directions.
“They don’t want to abandon the patient, but they (doctors) get frustrated,” said Tuohey.
This is when Tuohey would step in and find out if it would be ethical for the doctor to let go of the patient. In an attempt to find middle ground, Tuohey’s effort consisted of trying to find the best solution possible for both parties.
Besides his work at the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, Tuohey was also a member of the Oregon Pandemic Preparedness Task Force in which he assisted in creating a decision-making matrix towards the allocation of scarce resources. Tuohey also helped the task force with advance directive reform and also was an ethics consultant to the Oregon Medical Association.
While his 30-year career also included spending time in Oklahoma and Washington D.C., Tuohey has permanently arrived back to Westfield and his family is happy to have him back.
“We’re very happy to have him back in the area,” said Ursula Tuohey, John’s mother. “It’s good to have John home.”
While Tuohey has been able to celebrate his father’s 90th birthday and spend more time with his 4-year-old Irish Golden Doodle, he’s also been able to reflect on why he chose to come back to the Western Massachusetts area.
“After 30 years I just decided it was time to get back to parish life,” said Tuohey. “I really feel like it was time to repurpose my talents.”
During his time in Oregon the past couple of years, Tuohey began to notice that he really enjoyed going to parishes on weekends to preach.
“I just kind of thought that it was telling me something,” said Tuohey.
Currently, Tuohey is donating his time by helping out local parishes on the weekends. A member of the Springfield Diocese, Tuohey is meeting with the Bishop shortly in the hope that he can receive a full-time position at a nearby parish.
