Photography: Dustin Ashcraft

After eight years operating just south of downtown, Dr. Andres Nisimblat and his two associates were due for a change, and 2011 turned out to be a year of transition and rebirth.

Nisimblat and Drs. Catherine Bussieres and Glenn L. Bugay were in a building near Alameda and Doddridge streets that no longer met their needs. It was more coincidence than intentional, but the timing of their move came on Independence Day weekend.

"We found an opportunity to buy a beautiful building on the South Side of town, which is a growing part of town," said Nisimblat, a family practice physician.

Nisimblat, 38, and his team were planning a move six miles south to 6200 Saratoga Blvd. and within blocks of CHRISTUS Spohn South Hospital. The named their new clinic Corpus Christi Medical Associates P.A.

The move was necessitated in part because the clinical group had shrunk as a result of doctors who had retired, moved out of state or switched to another clinic in town.

"We were in an 11,000-square-foot facility," Nisimblat said. "We were struggling about what we were going to do."

Then his wife, Lori Anne Nisimblat, noticed a "for sale" sign next to her dentist's office. She brought it to her husband's attention, and that set the real estate buy in motion. Bussieres and Bugay were consulted, and they agreed to move together to the South Side of Corpus Christi.

"Their commitment to our clinic and encouragement means a lot to me," Nisimblat said.

Once the closing was done a month later, the staff undertook a marathon move. "We moved everything – our entire lab, the bone density machine. It's a lot of stuff," Nisimblat said. "We had the entire staff working from 6 in the morning. I would get home by 3 o'clock at night. That entire (July 4th) weekend was like that."

The following business day, the clinic was ready for patients on time. "It worked out great for us," Nisimblat said. "Many of our patients followed us."

And this should be Nisimblat's last move for a while.

Nisimblat isn't quite a Corpus Christi native, but he might as well be. He certainly can't see himself working anyplace else.

Going into the family business

Born and raised in nearby Alice, he is a second-generation physician and the son of Colombian immigrants, by way of a father whose parents left Romania and a mother whose parents left Italy to start new lives in South America.

His father, William Nisimblat, and brother, Erik Nisimblat, are pediatricians who run the Alice Pediatric Clinic. His mother, Tita Nisimblat, serves as their office manager. Nisimblat sees a lot of patients who come from Alice because of the reputation his father has built over the years.

Andres and his brothers used to accompany their father to the Alice hospital emergency room when they were boys, according to his mother. When her husband was called to the hospital, if the boys were out of school, they would tag along.

"They would sit outside the emergency room," Tita said. "The nurses would watch them while he worked."

Andres did not express an interest in medicine at an early age, as far as Tita could recall, but she saw he had a very compassionate attitude toward the elderly and the sick.

"We knew he had it in him," she said.

Unlike his father, however, Andres opted to work with adults. His focus is preventative medicine, and he deals primarily with what he calls "the classic three": high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

"A lot of our patients don't just have one medical problem," Nisimblat said.

The clinic does a lot of its own lab work for diabetes and cholesterol. It is routine for patients to get monitored for the classic three every three to four months. The lab also provides bone density studies on post-menopausal women.

"We also do CIMT," he added, referring to a check for atherosclerotic disease known as Carotid Intima-Media Thickness. "It's an ultrasound test that measures wall thickness of carotid arteries. It's a surrogate to what is going on in other arteries such as arteries of your heart. It's a noninvasive, simple procedure and takes 30 minutes."

A procedure developed by NASA and endorsed by the American Heart Association, a CIMT is the kind of test that helps doctors find risk factors that might not otherwise show up during an examination.

"We've all heard of the Joe down the street [who] was such a healthy guy," Nisimblat said. "His blood pressure was normal. He didn't have a history of heart disease in his family, and one day he has a heart attack. The purpose is to catch those people we wouldn't otherwise see until the actual heart attack."

Nisimblat sees up to 25 patients a day, and he says the staff of 12 – this includes nurses, lab techs and medical clerks – keeps very busy.

"All patients are seen by a physician," Nisimblat emphasized.

While his surname might indicate otherwise, Nisimblat is fluent in Spanish, an advantage in treating a Tex-Mex population.

His culinary tastes, however, lean toward Italian.

"Italian all the way," said Tita, who proudly announced she raised the youngest of her four sons on lasagna, polenta and osso bucco.

Andres, of course, appreciated a lot more than the osso bucco.

"My parents are the type of people I strive every day to be like, and hopefully one day I'll achieve that," he said. "If I do, then I know I have been successful in life."

His education

When Nisimblat was getting started, he first went to Texas A&M University – College Station. He then went to medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch – Galveston.

It was during medical school that he met his future wife, Lori Anne. A cousin of Lori Anne's introduced them at a wedding in Mexico City while Andres was on break. They now have a 4-year-old son, Levi Andrew.

Nisimblat performed his residency from 2000 to 2003 at CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial. Through it all, Lori Anne has supported and encouraged her husband.

"Without her endless dedication to our relationship, family, home and work, none of this would be so fun," Nisimblat said.

When he is not putting in long hours at the office, Nisimblat likes to cycle. He pedals as much as he can in town, and once each summer, he travels with several of his cycling buddies up to the Rocky Mountains, where he cycles for charity in the Copper Triangle.

"The money we raise is for the children's hospital in Denver," he said. "The tour takes us on a three-day ride through some really nice, picturesque roads."

Dr. Andres Nisimblat is a family practitioner at Corpus Christi Medical Associates P.A., located at 6200 Saratoga Blvd., Building 5. He can be reached at 361-225-2255.