Ken Tinsley, of Port Jefferson, Army vet, VA physician assistant, dies at 76

As a hospital physician assistant, Ken Tinsley was infuriated whenever a certain homeless veteran with PTSD had his medical appointments rescheduled because he was a few minutes late, Tinsley's family recalled.

“There were veterans that people thought were too nasty to care for, and my husband didn’t believe in that,” said his wife, Cheryl Tinsley of Port Jefferson.

Her husband decided to treat the veteran as his “exclusive patient,” including having the man stay at the Tinsley home overnight so he could make a hospital appointment.

“He gave his life, he didn’t just sit by selfishly,” Cheryl Tinsley said.

An Army veteran from Port Jefferson, Tinsley died April 13 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 76. For 32 years, Tinsley was a physician assistant in the Veterans Administration and later the Department of Veterans Affairs. He first worked in the emergency room at the West Haven VA Medical Center in Connecticut, and then in the surgery department at the Northport VA Medical Center, retiring in 2009.

Worth beyond his job

Family and friends said he showed his worth beyond his job. Early in his marriage, when Tinsley's wife decided without consulting him that her young niece and nephew would live with them, he raised the two like a father. When his grade-school son was disappointed because he wasn’t picked to try on circus stilts, Tinsley used his woodworking skills to fashion a pair for the boy. An award-winning Boy Scouts leader, Tinsley made it possible for Scouts with health issues to go to camp because parents trusted his medical training.

Friends Marie and Charlie Schluntz remember the day Charlie got food poisoning just before they had to host a party. Tinsley surprised them with a checkup visit to their home.

“He was an exceptional person,” Marie Schluntz said.

Raised in Westbury, Tinsley seemed to excel in whatever roles he took on, from fisherman to a ham radio operator known by call letters N1DTI.

“It’s meeting goals, setting goals, proper planning and going through successful failure,” defined as learning from problems, he said in a 2010 interview for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project.

Tinsley's affinity for health care was obvious as a boy, his family said. Relatives called him for health information, and he’d look up their ailments in the encyclopedias his mother bought him. Whenever he passed by Meadowbrook Hospital in East Meadow, now known as Nassau University Medical Center, he vowed to get hired there. He did after high school, working in the chemistry department for two years.

Training war medics

Drafted into the Army in 1968, Tinsley was annoyed upon hearing his designation as a clerk meant his laboratory experience would be wasted, he told the veterans history project. During basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Tinsley got his former hospital boss to write him a reference letter and he obtained a copy of his laboratory work license. Pretending to be sick, he hustled to the hospital and presented his credentials to the laboratory’s commanding officer, who transferred him there.

Tinsley trained medics destined for overseas assignments and was responsible for fulfilling Pentagon orders of blood every weekend, screening hundreds of pints bound for Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Discharged in 1970, Tinsley returned to his work at the East Meadow hospital where he improved a method of determining cholesterol levels, boosting the number of samples that could be tested per week, he said in the Library of Congress interview.

He then graduated from Howard University’s physician assistant program and was hired by the West Haven VA hospital in 1977, where he headed the sickle cell anemia screening program.

In the 2010 interview, Tinsley said he was proud to have taken care of veterans from every war since the Spanish-American War in 1898.

“It’s a great honor to serve this country,” Tinsley said, “but I think it’s just as honorable to be able to serve those that have served this country.”

Besides his wife, Tinsley is survived by a son, Kenny Tinsley Jr., of Port Jefferson Station, niece Camila Rivera-Tinsley, of Pittsburgh, nephew Kevin Blayton, of East Setauket, and his sister, Phyllis Taylor, of Westbury.

A service was held April 18 at Calverton National Cemetery, followed by burial. A memorial service is scheduled for June 22 at 2:30 p.m. at Bryant Funeral Home in East Setauket.