The Saint Gianna Clinic will be welcoming Dr. Thomas Reinardy, an accomplished and beloved OB/Gyn, July 11th. He has been practicing medicine in Oshkosh with the Ascension Medical Group since 1997. Reinardy comes from a family of medical people. His father was a family doctor and went to school in the 1960s. “He had tried enlisting for the army knowing about the conflict in Vietnam and knowing they were taking providers, and they initially rejected him. Then he ended up getting drafted after he started his practice.”

Reinardy’s father had already had children by the time he began his practice, and by the time his Vietnam tour was over, his family had grown to four children. He had several other practices for a while, including some time treating patients on the Menominee Reservation. “Since he was the only physician there, when he had child-care duty we’d often have to sit and play in his clinic while he’d take care of things. I got into medicine from that, I think; I had that plan as soon as I got out of high school,” he said.

“When you’re a medical student,” Reinardy said, “you often don’t know exactly what you’re going to do until you’re exposed to various disciplines. When I got to OB/Gyn, I remember I was actually going into it thinking, ‘I don’t want to like this. I don’t want to be up all night and on demand at all times.’ And then after watching a couple births, I almost couldn’t help it.”
He said, in some ways, his journey to the St. Gianna Clinic was almost accidental. He said he’d been serving at the same practice in the same community for over 20 years, but in the last few years there have been a lot of changes to the way medical establishments are run. “There’s been some changes and mergers and acquisitions; with medicine becoming more corporate, it’s been getting a bit more frustrating,” he said.

“I do love my community, and the decisions of these owners of hospital systems don’t seem to pay attention to them. It really eroded the practice that I built. I was one of the original providers at this practice; there were two of us, and the guy I started it with was gone after about six years,” he said.

He had worked with some really great people, but because of the complications of the corporatizing of medical care, he ended up as “the last cowboy” there, so he had to look for something else. “There are hundreds of jobs out there, but they all kind of look the same. I got tipped off that St. Gianna was looking. I met Dr. Robin and everybody there, and everyone is just so joyful and happy, so I didn’t ask too many questions about whether it was the ‘smart’ thing to do; I just felt pulled there,” he said.
Reinardy is a very outdoorsy guy. “I could probably spend all my free time out in my garage or in the yard,” he said. “I love to hunt and fish, and bike; my wife and I just converted our bicycles to e-bikes, so we’re out riding a lot more,” he said.