growth: the annual Medical Humanities Retreat. “The retreat was very instrumental in building a sense of community for the program. It lead to 2030 students coming together, listening to speakers talk about the issues affecting healthcare today and going back to campus and spreading the word,” Attas said. “I still get emails from students. They’re now in academic medicine and private practice and they said those retreats changed their life.” This year marks the 15th annual retreat for the Medical Humanities Program. Fittingly, Attas will serve as the keynote speaker for the retreat held on April 11 and 12. Eventually, the medical humanities minor was offered as a major as well. Attas explained students who had graduated with the minor were going through the interview process for medical school and were “blowing them all away.” In addition to fostering the program at Baylor and working at his cardiology practice, Attas
serves as a priest at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Waco. His ability to be in three places at once begs the question: where does he find the time? “I retired this last year from teaching,” Attas said. “The program got too big for me because I wanted to keep my practice, and it wasn’t fair to the students to have a class designed to be a seminar for 15 students to have 50 or 60.” Attas emphasized the role he felt was key in his practice as a doctor but also as his job as a priest. “Sometimes, the best preaching is to be kind to people. One of the best sayings I know is ‘Preach always, but only when necessary use words,’” Attas said. This idea of servitude and kindness is something Attas hopes will be characteristic of graduates from the program. The attention to patient relations and showing kindness to hurting people is what he hopes will separate these medical humanities students from the rest of the pack.
“Sometimes
the best preaching
is to be kind to people.
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