Thomas S. Garrison, DPM

Letter of Retirement

To all my patients, staff, and colleagues of past and present;

Many people already understand that a most unfortunate, but strangely unique event happened to me as a teen. This event led me to become your doctor and to have you all as my patients over the past thirty-three years. I have shared the story with a handful of you personally but I am positive that many of you have no awareness of the sequence of events that led to our meeting. So I will briefly, once again, share the story that ends with this letter of retirement. The story of what led to the most enriching practice life with which I have been blessed.

I grew up in League City and Seabrook, and attended elementary school in League City as NASA came into existence. In high school, I was athletically inclined, but was shot in the back by an unknown drive-by shooter. I spent over two years in despair in the hospital and finally asked my parents to bring me home. I amazingly survived the incident only to find myself having to use a wheelchair for the rest of my life. Many think that this would be a terrible thing to have happened, as did I, at the time. I will explain, however, why it was one of the greatest and most wonderful events to shape my life.

While I was in the hospital, I naturally became interested in medicine. I was not sure if I was intelligent enough to be a doctor, but loved people and nevertheless, set that as my goal. My plan was turbulent and fraught with many events and unexpected turns, but Podiatric medicine and surgery seemed the perfect solution for one confined to a wheelchair. So, I set out on a mission. Thankfully, I received some the best training possible in medical school and surgical residency, returned home, and opened my practice. That is how it began.

Over the years I shaped my professional practice to provide, to the best of my abilities, the finest podiatric foot and ankle care to the community I shared growing up. It was always my intent to provide a personalized one-on-one type of interaction with each and every one of you. To provide a treatment plan that was both educational and informative, yet styled with a blend of your goals and mine. Over the last thirty-three years, many of us have shared our personal stories, laughed and cried and suffered advances and setbacks, but we always ended up for the better.

I have to say now, in retrospect, that I have benefited far more than I ever expected or realized at the time. The effort I had invested in my training and every minute I spent individually with you has enriched me as a person in every respect. What you gave me was something totally unexpected and surprising. The gratitude I feel today from the trust you placed in me is overwhelming, even as I write this. These last thirty-three years of my life have humbled me, and even now, leave me in a profound state of happiness and well being.

As I move forward, the next chapter of my life is still somewhat of a mystery to me. Yet with the confidence and foundation you all have provided, I feel unleashed to write it however I wish. This is very exciting to me and I want to share that feeling with you. For my relationships with every single one of you, I will be eternally grateful. I mean this to include all of you, not only my patients, but also with the same heart felt sentiments to all my past and present office staff, my Podiatric colleagues, and to the many other physicians of multiple other specialties with whom I have shared mutual patients.

Most sincerely,

Thomas Garrison