Dr. Michael Jacobs, Island renaissance man, dies at 85

Dr. Michael Jacobs, the physician who established a walk-in clinic in Tisbury, is being remembered by Islanders for his wit, care for patients, and adventurous spirit. 

Surrounded by family in his West Tisbury home, Dr. Jacobs died on August 31 at the age of 85. He was laid to rest at Lambert’s Cove Cemetery in West Tisbury. 

“He was kind of a renaissance guy, and very athletic,” said Dr. Richard Koehler, an Island physician who was a sailing friend of Jacobs for 30 years. “It was a loss for all of us who knew him.”

Jacobs was born and raised in Queens, N.Y., where he became an Eagle Scout and learned sailing — a lifelong passion of the late doctor. While Jacobs studied philosophy at Brandeis University in Waltham, he later realized he wanted to pursue a career in medicine. His late start toward medicine led him to be the last student accepted in his year into the SUNY Downstate Medical School in Brooklyn, N.Y., but he’d end up graduating top of his class. 

Before coming to the Vineyard in 1976, Jacobs completed his internal medicine residencies at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He later completed a fellowship in gastroenterology. 

It was at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital where he would meet his second wife, Genevieve Jacobs, who was a nurse on the Island. While they worked together since the late 1990s, it wouldn’t be until July 2000 that they became a couple. Genevieve said they lived in a “delightful” little bungalow by Lagoon Pond, until the family outgrew it and moved to a West Tisbury property they named Pasture Prime. 

“He was the life of the party, and he was very, very loveable,” she said. 

Dr. Jacobs established a primary care and internal medicine practice called Vineyard Medical Services in 1985 in Tisbury, after seeing a need for a walk-in clinic on the Island. It became Vineyard Medical Care in 2014, after the business was bought by Tisbury residents Michael and Melinda Loberg. It’s currently called Martha’s Vineyard Medical, after being purchased by Chilmark resident Jeff Levy in May, and continues to play a role as a walk-in clinic for Islanders and visitors alike. 

Someone who’s been at the clinic throughout these transitions was Dr. Gerry Yukevich, who considers Jacobs a close friend. Yukevich moved to the Island in 1995 with his family and worked at an urgent care clinic in West Roxbury, but realized he was missing “some important Vineyard experiences” because of the commute. He inquired of Dr. Jacobs in 2007 whether he “might need another hand at his practice,” and they developed a “certain visceral attachment” that led them to immediately hit it off as friends and colleagues. 

Dr. Yukevich recalled the goofy nature Dr. Jacobs exhibited, including his so-called dress codes. 

“Gerry, now that it’s May you will be required to wear the summer dress code. Shorts till September. Understand? That’s an order,” Yukevich recalled Dr. Jacobs once telling him on a certain May 1 in a “very serious tone.”

On another day, Dr. Yukevich recalled, Dr. Jacobs asked him whether he owned a tuxedo. After he answered yes, Dr. Jacobs said, “Good. So tomorrow you and I will wear tuxedos.” 

“Why?” Dr. Yukevich asked. 

“I think it’s good to surprise the patients and keep them on their toes,” Dr. Jacobs replied. 

Those who knew Dr. Jacobs said he was a brilliant practitioner, and his compassion for patients shone on the Vineyard. 

“He had a tremendous love for the Vineyard, and he relished telling stories about his hospital colleagues and many of the Island characters he had treated through the decades,” Dr. Yukevich told The Times. “His affection for his patients was vast, and they all loved him for it. I always looked forward to coming to work in his clinic, and I’ve been working here [steadily] for the past 18 years. I am tremendously grateful to Michael for his guidance and support and friendship.”

That love for the Island also showed when the Lobergs could no longer continue the practice, and Dr. Jacobs actively helped search for a new tenant who would have the Vineyard’s best interests at heart. Genevieve said he had a “huge interest” in keeping the location a medical center. Otherwise, around 1,000 patients would’ve been without a primary care provider. 

“He knew how to love unconditionally, which is very difficult for many people to do, but he did,” Genevieve said. 

Dr. Yukevich said Dr. Jacobs was “a bit of a rogue” and had a “maverick view of life,” and this characteristic was shown in his penchant for outdoor activities. In his private office, Dr. Jacobs’ redwood desk was surrounded by photographs showing him participating in various activities, like running a marathon, riding through whitewater rapids, scuba-diving in the Caribbean, riding his golden motorcycle, and sailing on his “beloved boat” Moxie, which he once sailed to win the 636-mile Newport Bermuda Race. 

Dr. Koehler said Dr. Jacobs was incredibly knowledgeable about sailing; the two sailed and owned several wooden boats together, like a 1922 racing sloop. Dr. Jacobs was also a charter captain for some vessels. Whether they leisurely drank wine aboard a vessel or screamed into the wind as they sailed, Dr. Koehler said those were wonderful memories. 

“No matter how windy it was, having him on board you knew it was going to be OK,” Dr. Koehler said, noting Dr. Jacobs was a “very meticulous sailor.” 

As the years passed, Dr. Jacobs slowed his activities, sometimes just manning the helm of the boats. He returned to philosophy as he became less active, studying Mahamudra meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhist philosophy until the end of his life. 

Genevieve Jacobs said her husband, always young at heart and with a giving personality, touched the lives of many people and everyone had a “particular memory or experience” personal to them. With his passing, she hopes people can take his example of a “nonjudgmental, unconditional way of seeing humanity and wanting to help.”

“The climate we’re in right now encourages the opposite, and that was very, very upsetting to him, as it is to many of us,” she said. 

Dr. Jacobs’ obituary states that a celebration of life will be held in his honor on Oct. 18 at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society facility in West Tisbury. Details are to come, and all are invited.