After a long and distinguished career in ever-increasingly responsible roles in vascular surgery and academia, spanning the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and Minneapolis Heart Institute, and as the current Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Vascular Surgery, Dr. Timothy Sullivan swapped surgery a couple of years ago, at a young age, for fishing rods and adventures in Montana.
It was not without its challenges. Read on to hear why.
Where did you grow up, and what first sparked your interest in medicine?
I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, went to public school in Ohio, and I was originally planning on becoming a biomedical engineer. I had a scholarship to a school in Boston. My father saw an advertisement in the local paper that the State of Ohio was opening a combined six-year BS/MD program and he said, “you should probably apply.”
I really hadn’t thought about becoming a physician, but when I was accepted, it was too good to pass up. It was a state school, so it wasn’t super expensive, and it was six years for both degrees. If you did well in your studies for the first two years, you were automatically admitted to medical school.
My original goal was, following graduation, to become a family doctor; that all changed after I did my first surgical rotation as a medical student, and I was hooked. I ended up doing a five-year general surgery residency at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. I became interested in vascular surgery because of a mentor in my third and fourth years, Dr William Rundell, who really took me under his wing. It was the hardest, most technically challenging thing that I had ever done, and I said, “if I can master this, I’ll probably be a pretty good surgeon”.
As a fourth-year resident in the US, we apply for fellowships. I applied for a fellowship in vascular surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. It was home, and at the time probably the best program in the States. I only applied to one place. They selected three fellows a year and I was number four. I didn’t get in, and there was no plan B. It was humbling, but fortuitous.
As a fifth-year resident, I applied again and was at the top of the list, but now I had a gap year before going to Cleveland. At the advice of my future mentors in Cleveland, I applied to a fellowship in Toledo, Ohio. It wasn’t a prestigious program, but some of the surgeons there had been trained in Cleveland, and the Cleveland folks said I absolutely should go there for a year. I had an amazing year and met a beautiful young lady, Amy, who was the charge nurse on the three-to-eleven shift – and as a fellow, I was always at the hospital, on call every other night that year.
We’ve now been married for 35 years. Four children and 35 years of marriage! Serendipity, indeed! It’s been said that God takes care of drunks and fools…
You’re Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Vascular Surgery. How did that come about?
I liked to teach, but I’d never really wanted to write. My mentor in Cleveland, Dr Norman Hertzer, got me involved in some projects as a fellow, and helped me refine my writing skills, to the point where I really enjoyed it. To date, I think I’ve written maybe 200 papers and book chapters
Another mentor, Ramon Berguer, whom I met in Detroit, was the Founding Editor of Annals of Vascular Surgery. When I went to visit him to learn some advanced surgical techniques (eversion carotid endarterectomy and distal vertebral artery reconstruction) we became friends. I started to review manuscripts for the journal and ultimately became its first Associate Editor (for Endovascular Technologies). When Ramon stepped down about a decade ago, he asked me to take over for him.
Ironically, it’s been one of the joys of my life. I get to see what other surgeons are doing on the cutting edge, and help them, through the editorial process, improve their manuscripts on the path to publication. I’ve always wanted to give back to the specialty, but more behind the scenes; I loathe the spotlight. I never wanted to be president of a society or hold high-profile ceremonial positions. It’s just not me. I like being behind the scenes while still giving back in a meaningful way. My tenure as Editor-in-Chief will be done at the end of 2026, and it will be time to hand it off the next generation.
You retired from surgery during the pandemic. What led to that decision?
For the last dozen years of my career, I was in Minneapolis. I was recruited to build a vascular surgery program. We built a big department, and we were awarded the first independent (ie, without a general surgery residency) vascular surgery fellowship in the country. We were doing big cases, growing the program, and recruiting really talented young people. The process of building was very satisfying.
Towards the end of my time in Minneapolis, I wore a number of leadership hats: Chair of Vascular and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Medical Director of the Cardiac Cath Lab and the Cardiovascular Operating Rooms, Director of the Vascular Center, and Program Director of the Vascular Surgery Fellowship, among others. I was pulled more and more into administration, which was fine as long as I was still able to spend time in the operating room, taking care of patients and mentoring my junior colleagues.
Then in 2019, I got a numb hand and I couldn’t operate – the result of an old neck injury that occurred when I was a kick boxer. My entire job became administrative, which was challenging, but certainly not why I went into medicine and surgery. After many conversations with Amy, we decided to retire in July 2020.
What were the challenges of retirement, and how did you navigate them?
It was the middle of the pandemic. Amy and I had always planned to retire in Montana (our honeymoon in 1990 was camping for three weeks in Glacier National Park) and had purchased a small home there. We packed up and moved. It was exciting, but hard, because everything was shut down. I went from going a hundred miles an hour and being in charge of a lot of stuff to being in charge of pretty much nothing.
The first year was psychologically challenging. I lacked a sense of purpose, a loss of self-worth, and had a sense of grief for what I had given up. If you’re planning to retire, try to plan a transition—teaching, volunteering, writing—so it’s not cold turkey. Annals really helped because I still had my foot in the medical world.
It’s hard not identify yourself by your profession if you’re really ‘all in’. And to be a vascular surgeon, or really any profession, you have to be completely dedicated in order to be successful. And you’re working, you know, 80 to 100 hours a week for 30 or 40 years. When that’s gone, I think there is a loss of that identity.
But that wasn’t all of who I was. I have had many roles over my lifetime: son, brother, husband and father, friend and mentor, surgeon, educator, distance runner, boxer. And now, while I’ve had to give up some of those along the way, I remain whole and can add other interests to my ‘portfolio’. I know physicians who were completely tied up in their surgical identity, and it was very difficult for them when they retired.
The other important thing that made it challenging for Amy and me: was moved to a brand-new place and didn’t know anyone. In the middle of a pandemic.
Social interaction is a big determinant of happiness and longevity. And here we were basically not able to go anywhere for a while. When things opened up after the pandemic Amy decided to work for a landscaper. She has a green thumb. That became her friend group. And I decided to bartend at a local brew pub. I loved it! I’m not an especially social person, so the bartending gig was really out of my comfort zone. I thought, you know, I’ll do this and it’ll be uncomfortable for a while, but I’ll meet people, and it might bring me out of my shell. I had more fun than you can imagine and I got to know tons of people. Livingston (Montana) is a town of about 9,000 people, and there’s not a day that I walk down the street now that someone doesn’t wave and say, ‘hey Sully’! That’s super important if you’re moving after you retire. You really need to work hard to develop those social connections.
We are incredibly lucky that our three boys all live in Livingston, so we see them almost every day. Very unusual for this day and age. Our daughter, our oldest, lives in Washington, DC; we see her every few months, either in Montana or DC.
Looking back, how do you reflect on your career?
I reflect back on a career that was never supposed to be! With incredible thankfulness and humility. I wasn’t going to be a doctor. I wasn’t going to be a surgeon. I wasn’t going to be a vascular surgeon for sure, and I was not ever going into academics or write. And really, it’s because of a little luck, some hard work when given an opportunity, and my mentors, three of whom are mentioned previously. They took an interest in me and lit the fire. Without them, I would not have had such an incredibly fulfilling career.
One of my mentors said, when I asked him why he wrote so much: “I just didn’t want to go through my career doing operations and changing bandages.” Our primary focus is taking care of patients. Help people. But that resonated with me. I needed another way to express myself, and to give back to specialty and to the patients we serve.
I reflect with a profound sense of gratitude for what the profession has given me— and kind of shake my head. How did that happen? It’s almost like a dream, right? A separate reality. Now, 5 years into retirement, I’m finally ready to move on. I used to dream of the operating room three times per week; now I’m down to once a month!!
You’ve also started a business with your son?
Yes, my middle son Angus and I started a business building fly fishing rods. Sullivan Fly Rods in Livingston, Montana. https://www.sullivanflyrods.com
I’ve been in love with fishing since I was a pup. My dad taught me to fly fish and I’ve taught my kids. Six or seven years ago, I started building fly fishing rods for personal use or to give to friends and family. When Angus was a full-time fishing guide here in Montana; during the wintertime when he wasn’t guiding, he and I would sit and listen to music, drink beer and build fly rods together. We got to be pretty good at it and ultimately decided to start a small business. It’s been a ton of fun. We are building the business slowly, mostly by word of mouth, and only sell about 20 rods a year, which is okay. I don’t want to be so busy that it becomes a ‘real job’ just yet! But it’s been fun. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit, and the fact that I get to do this with one of my sons is pretty amazing. And, again, it’s a nice transition and as I leave Annals, I’ll be able to devote a little bit more time to building fly rods and floating down the Yellowstone River.
You have dual citizenship with Ireland. How did that come about?
My dad’s parents, Timothy Joseph Sullivan and Mary McHugh, were from County Cork and County Mayo, respectively, and they ended up in Gary, Indiana, because of the steel mills where my grandpa worked.
My grandad’s name was originally O’Sullivan, but he dropped the ‘O’ so as not to be dropped from work lists at a time when the Irish were not always welcome in America. According to my dad, they weren’t very well off. Their furniture would be repossessed from time to time. But they made it.
I never got to meet my grandma. She passed before I was born, but I remember meeting my grandpa Tim when he was in a nursing home in Indiana. My dad, William Timothy Sullivan, took me to see him, and the one memory that I have is my dad saying, “Look Dad, here’s your grandson, your namesake, Timmy.” He looked down and said, “he’s a fine broth of a lad Billy!”
I ended up applying for citizenship so as to complete my connection to Ireland. It took a while, but I am now a naturalized citizen. I’m very proud of my Irish heritage and our family story. Not exclusive to the Irish, of course, but is, I think, typical of the story of the Irish in America. My grandparents came for economic opportunity and struggled. My dad dropped out of high school to join the Navy during World War II, returned to obtain a college degree on the GI Bill, and became a successful businessman; in one additional generation, there’s a physician in the family.
Several years ago, when we visited Dublin for a few days, we got off the plane and went through customs with our youngest son, Bevan. His grandpa used to say he had the map of Ireland on his face! The customs agent looked at him and read his passport, “Bevan Wallace Sullivan: Welcome home, boy”. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a tear in my eye.