THE GOOD DOCTOR
Dr. Timothy Lepore receives the inaugural Fred Rogers Good Neighbor Award.
story by Robert Cocuzzoand and JohnCarl McGrady
photography by Charity Grace Mofsen and Kit Noble
For many people, the late Fred Rogers represents something of a patron saint of Nantucket. The beloved children’s television host and Madaket summer resident exemplified the neighborly values that the island community still holds dear. Two years ago, the Dreamland sought to cement Mister Rogers’ legacy on Nantucket by erecting an original statue of him sculpted by Seward Johnson that sits outside of the theater. Last month, the Dreamland took its efforts to celebrate the values of Mister Rogers a step further by establishing the Fred Rogers Good Neighbor Award to recognize a Nantucket resident who contributes selflessly to the community. Of the nearly one hundred individuals who were nominated by the community for the award, this year’s inaugural recipient is an island icon in his own right, Dr. Timothy Lepore.
“As the first recipient of the Fred Rogers Good Neighbor Award, I feel quite humbled,” said Lepore. “Mr. Rogers certainly was an innovator and a creator, but he was much more than that.” The same could be said of Lepore who is much more than simply a doctor. His exploits as a marathon-running, antique-gun-collecting, falcon-flying, country-style doctor are immortalized in the pages of Pam Belluck’s critically acclaimed biography Island Practice. “In a world of corporatized health care, where doctors’ time with patients is logged in ‘relative value units,’ Lepore is a never-say-no physician who accepts payment in oatmeal raisin cookies, lets patients bring themselves, or their animals, to his home at all hours, and makes house calls, even to a hermit squatting illegally in swampland whose house is a ‘twigloo’ made of vines,” Belluck wrote for this magazine in 2013.
"Lepore stole hospital supplies to treat a horse with suspected cyanide poisoning in the middle of a field [and] commissioned a pot-smoking patient to illegally bake marijuana cookies for cancer sufferers.”
Many know the legend of Lepore more than the man. He first came to Nantucket to fill in at the understaffed emergency room, spending a month on the island in 1981 and 1982. At the end of his second stint, he realized he had fallen in love with Nantucket and didn’t want to leave. The next year, he moved to the island permanently. Since then, in addition to his work as a primary care physician, he has served as medical director and chief of surgery at Nantucket Cottage Hospital. He has been Nantucket’s medical examiner for many years, and for decades, he was the island’s only surgeon. Lepore has also become one of the world’s leading experts on tick-borne diseases, penning dozens of peer-reviewed articles published in prestigious journals.
Dr. Lepore on the sidelines of the Whalers football team where he has served as team doctor for decades—completely free of charge. Photos courtesy of Dr. Timothy Lepore.
As intriguing as Lepore’s folkloric medical reputation might be, it was his many unsung contributions to the community that earned him the Fred Rogers Good Neighbor Award. Perhaps none of these contributions is more notable than his decades of service to the island’s public schools. Lepore has served as the medical advisor to Nantucket High School sports and as the football team’s physician, attending nearly every Whaler football game for years. More than once, he has run out onto the field at a high school sports game to help an injured student or provide assistance to an athletic trainer even though he wasn’t supposed to be working.
But he has lent more to the school system than just his medical expertise. He has also spent many years on the School Committee, well past the point when all of his children had graduated, taking on the roles of chair and vice chair as the situation demanded. Even now, Lepore remains on the committee, doing his part to help the students. Helping kids is just part of who Lepore is. Though it often goes unmentioned in the numerous profiles of his life on Nantucket, Lepore has opened up his home to many troubled children, fostering them and giving them a place to stay.
Lepore’s service extends well beyond the schools. For years, he has fought tirelessly against opioid addiction. As Nantucket’s medical examiner, Lepore is often responsible for diagnosing overdoses on the island, and his voice has become a ubiquitous presence in the conversation about the opioid crisis. Lepore has spoken to local and regional news outlets about the crisis, but he wasn’t content with just warning others. He had to do something to solve the problem himself. So, he founded Addiction Solutions of Nantucket and became the island’s only licensed provider of suboxone, which is used to treat opioid addiction. Beyond opioids, Addiction Solutions of Nantucket also treats addiction to alcohol and other substances. Now, if an islander wants their addiction treated, Lepore is often the first person they turn to.
Sometimes, it seems like Lepore is determined to do something to solve every problem facing the island, from the overpopulation of deer—he supports culling them and is an avid hunter himself—to the housing crisis. An outspoken advocate for affordable housing, Lepore has championed efforts to make it easier for middleclass families to buy homes on Nantucket. Lepore wants the island to be accessible for families like his, and he wants them to be able to stay on Nantucket, just like his family has for the last forty years.
When Lepore arrived on Nantucket in 1981, he never meant to stay. But now, thankfully for the island he has come to call home, he never means to leave. Though he is no longer Nantucket’s only surgeon, his contributions to the island community remain unmatched, spanning from affordable housing to the football team and the School Committee to addiction treatment. As the first recipient of the Good Neighbor Award, Timothy Lepore furthers the legacy that Fred Rogers instilled in the island.
“Mr. Rogers displayed courage by taking chances in exploring new ways to reach out and celebrate children through television,” Lepore said. “He made children feel important and respected. …His ability to educate without preaching and his genuine humanity are the things I would like to emulate.”
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