The Doctor Is In: Dr. Joy Marshall Joins the Tremont Functional Rehab and Health Collaborative

Tremont Functional Rehab and Health Collaborative at 2401 Scranton Road began with Dr. Alex Frantzis, a chiropractic physician, and Dr. David Perse, a general surgeon who had the idea of combining their practices in a single site to handle chiropractic, physical therapy, and general surgical needs.

The collaborative believes it has recently realized its original vision with the addition of Dr. Joy Marshall’s general practice.

Bruce Checefsky, a writer for both Plain Press and The Tremonster, interviewed Dr. Joy Marshall in the Tremont neighborhood for an in-depth story. The following is a joint report published in The Tremonster, Plain Press, and La Villa CLE.

Dr. Joy Marshall, from Cleveland Heights, attended medical school at the age of 36. By most standards, starting medical school at that age can be a significant challenge. Before then, while supporting her two children on welfare, she earned income in the local restaurant scene. Married at eighteen, she lived in Oaxaca, Mexico, for a year.

Returning to Cleveland, she and her husband started a restaurant in University Circle called Fantomas (now L’Albatros). Two children later, they ended up divorced and she began working as a barmaid and specials cook at Nighttown on Cedar Road.

One day, the president of Case Western Reserve University, Louis A. Toepfer (presidency years 1970–1980), came to lunch as he often did and struck up a conversation with Marshall. He asked her what she was doing with her life. “I know it sounds ridiculous,” she told Toepfer, “but I want to try to go to medical school and I am thinking about doing the undergraduate work at Cleveland State.” He told her, “We have a nice little university down the hill (CWRU).”

She thought about her age. Toepfer reminded her that life experiences were worth something—learning to speak a second language, helping to establish a successful restaurant, and raising two children as a single mother were significant achievements. Yet she could not afford the tuition. “You get in; there are grants out there,” he told her. He gave her the name and phone number of the pre-med dean at the university. 

She got in.

Dr. Joy Marshall moved her existing general practice in with the collaborative at Tremont Functional Rehab this past month.

Dr. Marshall now relates this story to her patients.“Even though I was a middle-class kid, my parents never encouraged me to attend college or pursue a profession. When I started work as a doctor, talking to my patients felt like I was looking in the mirror. Somehow, I had the wherewithal to believe I could make it. A lot of my patients were beaten down before they could even get started.”

Dr. Marshall figured out how to attend college while on public assistance to support her family. “Back then, college was considered a job by the government: my family was eligible for welfare. I got rent and food stamps, health care, and day care for my children. Those days are gone.”

When she was a little girl, her father, a doctor at East Cleveland's Huron Hospital, would take her on his rounds on Saturdays. The experience scared her, but every time her father walked into a patient's room, regardless of their medical condition, the patients smiled.

“After that experience, I told my father that I wanted to be a doctor too,” she said. “I could see how his presence helped patients for the better. I wanted to do that,” Dr. Marshall explained. “A funny thing: he would tell me that I would just get married and have babies—which, truth be told, I did. I didn’t go to college until I was 28.”

After a difficult upbringing, her father injured his back and, impressed by the healing he experienced from physicians and medicine, decided to attend medical school. He also did everything “late.” Dr. Marshall followed in his footsteps, joining the medical profession later in her life. 

When asked about the vaccine debate under the current federal administration, she did not hesitate to express her opinion. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., currently the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has a long and highly controversial history of promoting false and misleading claims about vaccines,” she said. “Back when I was a resident doctor, every Wednesday there would be what they called ‘Grand Rounds,’” Dr. Marshall explained. “Doctors and nurses would meet in the auditorium for a lecture by a specialist. One week, it was an infectious disease doctor.”

She recalled the specialist saying, “For those of you who don’t get your flu vaccine because you never get sick, consider getting it so that, when you breathe on someone more susceptible than you are, you don’t transmit the virus.” “I had never thought of that before,” she said. “It’s a public health issue. For me it’s also a moral issue.” 

Dr. Marshall also speaks Spanish, which helps patients struggling with English in a very diverse part of the city. The Clark-Fulton neighborhood, on Cleveland’s West Side and only a few blocks from her office, has the highest concentration of Hispanic residents in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.

“Working with surgeon Dr. David Perse (former head of both Lutheran Hospital and St. Vincent Charity Medical Center) at Tremont Functional Rehab and Health has been a remarkable experience,” she explained. Dr. Perse can see her patients the following day, rather than having them wait weeks or months for an appointment at the larger medical centers and hospitals.

“I want to refer my patients to a person, not to a department such as orthopedics. I want them to know the doctor taking care of them,” she said. “It is getting harder to do, but here, at Tremont Functional Rehab and Health, we have specialists I can recommend who are readily available and personable.”

From the start, Dr. Marshall defines her doctor–patient relationships differently from those at larger medical centers. “Whenever I see a new patient, I make sure that they understand this is a partnership. I work for them.”

Tremont Functional Rehab and Health accepts all types of health insurance. With medical costs soaring and fewer people able to pay for health care, Dr. Marshall has an opinion about medical coverage in the United States.

“We are the only developed country in the world that does not take care of its own people,” said Dr. Marshall. “I want to see universal medical care in this country, much like in Canada, and avoid wasting money on navigating the complex health care system.”

Office hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. For appointments, call Tremont Functional Rehab and Health at 216-284-3007.

Walk-ins are welcome. For more information, visit functionalrehabneoh.com.