October 15, 2024
"Tunkhannock, A Great Place to Live"
By: Sara Ergott
Surrounded by mountains on all sides with a picturesque river running through them, sits the small town of Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. In 1771, Zebulun Marcy started a settlement along the banks of the Susquehanna River, eager to use its rich soil for farming. This settlement was originally named Marcy after its founder. Fifteen years later it was renamed Tunkhannock, which is derived from the Iroquois term for “small river”. While the town itself has seen many changes over the last few hundred years, the beauty of the mountains and the river has remained, and in turn has lured many people to take up residence within its boundaries. Fast forward to 1993, when a young doctor named Christopher Andres was making the drive from Philadelphia to Sayre. He was drawn to the beauty of the area, and realized, like Zebulon, that Tunkhannock would be a great place for him and his wife to live. It is in this town, with its idyllic lure, that Andres built a home and legacy of healthcare for the region.
Doctor Andres was born in Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, New York, to Richard and Marilyn Andres. His ties to the area are strong as his mother was from Dunmore and his father was from the Greenridge section of Scranton. He was second in line of five siblings, with four boys and one girl. After graduating from Conklin, New York, Andres enrolled in the University of Scranton with the intent of taking the pre-med program to become a doctor. This goal was inspired by his paternal grandmother. During a retreat sponsored by the college, Andres was on the same team as a woman named Lynn Marie King. They became wonderful friends and spent a great deal of time together during their years at the University. Upon graduation in 1989, Andres went on to the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Halfway through medical school Andres married Lynn, which delighted his grandmother because Lynne, too, was from the Scranton area.
In his fourth year of medical school, the decision of where to do residency needed to be made. Lynn and he had just had their first baby named Christopher. Christopher was born premature and was in the neonatal care unit. Andres and Lynn discussed the option of residency at Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pennsylvania. Andres had heard about Guthrie’s newly formed Family Department of Medicine and secured an interview for the residency spot. It was during the blizzard of ’93 when Andres drove from Philadelphia to Sayre for this interview, leaving his wife and newly born son behind in Philadelphia. “As I was driving through Tunkhannock on my way to Sayre, I saw this sign outside the town that said ‘Tunkhannock, a Great Place to Live’. I then drove past the hospital along Route 6 and thought, this really would be a great spot for me to work and bring my family,” recalls Andres. He was offered the residency and worked in Sayre from 1993-1996. In 1994, he and Lynn had their second son named Matthew. While raising two boys, he worked hard with Guthrie to make the new department successful. During this time, the program with Guthrie started with four providers in 1993 and grew to fifteen providers by 1996. Andres became the Chief Resident of Family Medicine in 1996.
After residency, Doctor Andres wanted to stay with Guthrie and Lynn wanted to be closer to family. Guthrie did not have a primary care facility in Tunkhannock, but did have a history in the area. Working together, Guthrie and Andres were able to establish and create a Primary Care and Family Medicine Clinic in 1996. “I had the best job in the world. I was able to be a small-town family physician with the support of working with and for a multi-specialty group,” reflects Andres.
Tunkhannock embraced the Guthrie clinic and Andres’ and Lynn’s family continued to grow. They welcomed their third son named Sean in 1998. With three young boys and a growing practice, Andres was surely busy. One part of his family practice was in maternal care and with a smile he quips that, “My wife always made sure to remind me that I don’t deliver the baby, I just catch the baby.” So often he would get a call about a patient of his in labor. When one of his sons asked where daddy was going his wife would say, “He’s going to catch a baby because we need money for cookies and toys.”
Tyler Memorial Hospital played an integral role in his line of work. Andres had a long history both personally and professionally and could not say enough about the great things that took place within the building. For years he sat on the Board of Directors of Tyler, from the late 90s until the end in 2023. He also rotated as Chief of Medical Staff and was Chairman of Family Medicine, amongst many other positions within the field. He states that, “We had the advantage that we have these independent solo practitioners who were invested in the facility. It was such a unique experience that we all functioned as a group and collaborated. I also had the advantage that I worked with Guthrie, as they are very provider friendly and extremely supportive to help with anything we need in our community. Guthrie has a very ‘patient-centered model’ and would allow me to do what I felt was best for the patient.”
Dr. Andres is pictured here at the second floor Tyler Wing nurses’ station.
When asked about a memory from his time in the Tyler Hospital building that really stood out in his tenure, he immediately responded about this older couple that lived on a farm in the area. They had been married for over seventy years and got to the point where they couldn’t come into the office anymore so Dr. Andres would make house calls for them. Every time he went to the house, the Mrs. would have zucchini bread baking in the oven. One time both got very sick and had to be admitted into the hospital. The hospital was full at the time, so Dr. Andres had to put them together in the same room, which was a mistake. As he recalls, “The husband would ring the bell, and if the nurse did not come fast enough, the wife would get out of her bed to see what he wanted and take care of him.” This kept happening so Dr. Andres ended up having to put them on opposite ends of the building because they both needed to get better. Later, the husband was sick again and was admitted to the hospital. At the same time, Dr. Andres was on call to deliver babies. The husband was near the end, and coincidentally one of his Dr. Andres’ patients went into labor. He had to go back and forth between both patients to check their status. Sadly, he was called to the husband’s room to pronounce his passing. Simultaneously, there was a stat alert for Dr. Andres to return to the delivery room. He ran down the hallway just in time to “catch the baby”. He remembers feeling, “Within sixty seconds of end of life to beginning of life, that is where I found myself. It was such a moment in my career that it reminded me as a family physician to not get so caught up in the burn out of medicine so that I lose sight of those kinds of moments.”
Currently, Dr. Andres is the Regional Lead Physician for Guthrie in the Southeast Region, Medical Director of Walk-in at Towanda and Tunkhannock, precepting in the residency program to Sayre for their outpatient residency, along with many other leadership roles in the medical profession. With the transformation of the hospital into the Wyoming County Healthcare Center, Dr. Andres is looking forward to giving back to what he was able to get from the facility in personal and professional growth. He feels that local care has been such a challenge due to sending people out of the area that can’t afford it and now we can keep these things here again to support the community and its people.
Dr. Andres’ Guthrie office is located on the first floor of the Healthcare Center.
The area and its people are what make this community special. The sign along the side of the road that Dr. Andres passed all those years was not wrong. Tunkhannock really is a great place to live.
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