CVAHEC Student Project Reports

Sheilla Andrews
Summer Docs Program

I love the greatest physician who ever lived. He effortlessly defeated diseases and at times literally brought his patients back from the grave. However, while that made Him the Son of God, that is not what made him a good physician. Unlike Christ, physicians cannot always heal. Instead, His greatness as a physician lies in the fact that He fought suffering in every form He found it, and He demonstrated humility, genuine love, and respect for those He healed.

As I participated in the Summer Docs program this past summer, I saw the attributes that made Jesus a good physician reflected in the many of people I encountered. Some of them were not doctors or health professionals, and some did not acknowledge the God whose attributes they reflected. However, in at least one aspect of their lives, they each resembled Christ and modeled what a good physician should look like.

"Maybe I'm just too dumb to learn, but I still ask those questions," an obstetrician-gynecologist said. She was referring to the social questions - of complete sexual history, domestic violence, rape, and depression. One of her colleagues had just admitted that he no longer asked about the psychosocial; otherwise, the office visits took too long, and his emotions could not handle the suffering he unearthed.

Yet, this woman had been practicing medicine for just as long, had seen just as much, and was too concerned about her patients to let herself follow his lead and take the safer route. Like Christ, she was concerned not only with her patients' physical illnesses, but also with their experiences and emotional anguish. No matter how many doctors thought otherwise, she sensed that fighting both kinds of suffering was her job.

"Oh, she's so smart and funny," an advocate for the disabled said, referring to the developmentally disabled woman she cared for. “Most people don't see that, but it's obvious if you look." Twenty years ago, she had become the legal guardian of a woman who could not even speak or walk because of severe cognitive deficits. The woman in her care was one of the least respected or valued members of society—as evidenced by the fact that many people have said that babies who will have similar disabilities should be aborted because their quality of life will not justify their existence.

Before coming under this advocate's protection, the woman had been given oral care without Novocain, denied adequate health care, neglected, and both physically and sexually abused. The woman speaking to me recounted of these incidents with outrage, but her tone changed when she spoke of the woman's personality. The love in her voice was unmistakable. She saw the woman's worth. That is the essence of respect, and it is essential to medicine.

"You have put so much work into making this a success, and I can't thank you enough," a nurse at the Vermont Department of Health said.

As our main summer project, another medical student and I had prepared and given a PowerPoint presentation on behalf of the Ladies First program. Since we were initially unfamiliar with the program, we were very inefficient. Sometimes it felt like the staff at the Department of Health could have put the presentation together themselves in the amount of time it took them to help us do it.

Everyone had been supportive, but this particular nurse had done the most. She met with us, gave us literature, answered our questions, and acted as our contact to the rest of the Ladies First Program. When we gave the PowerPoint presentation at the medical center in St. Albans, she brought a catered lunch for the doctors and office staff who attended. She thought nothing of giving us her time. In fact, she did not seem to think of herself at all, but focused only on our efforts.

That is the very definition of humility. Humility means not thinking more of oneself than is merited, but it is also not thinking less of oneself. Rather, it means not thinking of oneself at all. Humility is absolutely required in order to be a good doctor, and this nurse naturally displayed it.

What did I learn this summer? I learned what I already knew. Many people wear white coats and name tags that bear the initials MD, but that does not make them qualified to be healers.

The information in medical books cannot do that either. That scientific knowledge must be combined with humility, love, respect, and a determination to fight suffering.

I hope that someday I will practice that brand of medicine. I hope that I will be like Christ.