Story & Photos Provided
Tyler J. Wilson, MD, had nearly completed his final year of training with the Franciscan Health Family Medicine Residency program and was on the cusp of joining a practice in Martinsville, Indiana.
Sadly, the 29-year-old physician passed away during the summer of 2015, leaving behind his wife and family, a wide circle of friends and colleagues and a promising career in medicine. He was an honors graduate of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and the IU School of Medicine.
While Dr. Wilson’s life was brief, his legacy endures today during one of the most gripping pandemics in more than a century. Like countless volunteers who have stepped up to support hospital caregivers with donations, his mother, Toni Wilson-Taylor, and sister, Stephani Wilson, wanted to do their part.
They put their hands to work and created 40 surgical masks and provided them to Franciscan Health Indianapolis clinicians and support staff.
“We made these masks in his beautiful memory,” says Wilson-Taylor, a resident of Plainfield. “May God bless, comfort, protect and strengthen our frontline works.
During these days of quarantine and social-distancing, many are learning new and different skills, Wilson-Taylor learned to sew. And the masks she and her daughter made were her inaugural projects.
Through the love and dedication of his family, Dr. Tyler Wilson is still practicing medicine in a symbolic yet practical way.
