Editor's Note: Senior of the Month is a new, monthly profile on a senior citizen or senior couple based in Plant City. Any resident over the age of 55 who has left a lasting impact in the community is eligible for Senior of the Month. If you know someone who would make a great Senior of the Month, contact News Reporter Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.
Between 150 to 200 eye patients rotate in and out of Dr. Teofil “Teo” Kulyk’s ophthalmology office on Southern Oaks Drive every week. The Plant City doctor, who has been practicing in the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World for 36 years, jokes that he’s semi-retired — he only spends 45 hours per week seeing his office patients.
“As long as I have my health, I’ll keep going,” Kulyk said. “I have no plans to retire.”
Practice Makes Perfect
Kulyk is largely driven by the work ethic he developed at an early age. In 1949, he immigrated to New Jersey from Vienna, Austria, with his parents.
It was the Cold War, and while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had formed that same year to resist communist expansion, Kulyk’s parents feared the worst. His family left Europe from Ukraine.
“My father was afraid the communists were going to take over all of Europe,” Kulyk said. “He didn’t want us to be brought up under communism.”
Though Kulyk’s father had studied medicine in Austria, he had to take a job as a factory worker in the United States. The wages were low, but Kulyk’s parents still enlisted him in piano classes, for $3 per lesson.
“I practiced out of guilt,” Kulyk said. “I would rather be playing baseball, but that was their blood, sweat and tears.”
Once he learned the piano, though, the instrument became fun. Today, he performs at various nonprofit fundraisers and events throughout town, including the recent Evening of Piano sponsored by the Arts Council of Plant City at the Plant City Photo Archives and History Center.
“Once you learn how to play, you enjoy it,” Kulyk said. “You don’t appreciate what you can do until you do it.”
Kulyk played piano in his college band at Seton Hall University, where he majored in Russian. He taught Russian for a few years at Clifton High School in Clifton, New Jersey.
“That was during the Cold War, in the age of Sputnik,” Kulyk said. “At that time, Russian was a very popular language.”
When school was out for the summer, he worked as a bartender.
“And then I got serious and went to medical school,” he said. “And the rest is history.”
Eye on the Prize
The summer of 1968 was transformative for Kulyk.
He was working as a bartender in the Catskill Mountains when he met Barbara, a Long Island native who was earning her degree. Once she graduated, the two got married.
That same summer, Kulyk met a fellow bartender who was in his second year of medical school. Kulyk began reading his copies of the New England Journal of Medicine. Eventually, he decided to enroll in medical school.
He pursued ophthalmology after conducting a research project with a mentor who was an ophthalmologist.
Kulyk graduated from the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1976 and completed an internship at College Hospital in New Jersey in 1977. That same year, he began his residency in ophthalmology at New York Hospital’s Cornell Medical Center in New York.
Every year, 450 applicants applied to the prestigious program and two residents were accepted. Once Kulyk was accepted, he worked between 80 to 100 hours per week for three years straight.
“I don’t know how I did it,” Kulyk said. “But when you’re young, you can do it.”
After his residency ended, Kulyk moved to Plant City, where an ophthalmologist was in high demand.
“I just had to get out of the Northeast,” Kulyk said.
For years, Kulyk worked over 60 hours per week taking care of patients, including emergency room calls. Today, he is still partnered with South Florida Baptist Hospital, where he performs surgeries and consultations.
His advice to medical students is to give it their all.
“It’s just a matter of hard work,” he said. “If you’re willing to dedicate your all to it, then it’s the right field.”
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.