A Gift to match a calling Reflections on faith and medicine By Curtis Read patient by patient, the physician moves from inexperience to comfort, and eventually, to mastery. Every encounter is different – no two patients are alike, and no patient is the same from day to day. With careful observation, and years of experience, a physician can cast an elucidating light on the human body, and begin to understand the human mind and heart. Every day, thousands of physicians walk through thousands of doors; amid the thousands of encounters, perhaps the most important is the encounter with the divine.
Reflection
We bustled – nine of us in all – into the small hospital room, where a patient was losing her life. White coats and carts, and the urgent toll of the rapid response bell, merged to form a scene that was tumultuous and, ultimately, unsuccessful. With our heads hung low, we placed a blanket over the departed woman, and filed from the room, replaced by three members of her immediate family. The priest was standing outside the door, whispering words of sympathy to a younger man. I exchanged a brief glance with him, and saw a quiet dignity in his eyes – and understood that he and I were the same: we were both healers, one for the body, and one for the soul.
Encounters
Medicine is an art of encounters. Every day, thousands of physicians walk through thousands of doors, and find a patient waiting on the other side. The encounter is full of questions: the nature of the illness, the effects on the patient’s life. If a physician is astute, the encounter is more than merely gathering information: it is an opportunity for communication. These encounters add up. door by door,
Eventually, every thoughtful physician will walk through a door of their own. It may be after the unexpected passing of a patient; it may be after helping to bring another life into this world. Regardless of the etiology, we will trace a thoughtful path to a quiet office, or a vacant room, or a quiet car, and our own healing encounter will begin – this time, with the physician as the patient, and with the divine presence as the healer. We will do exactly what our patients do: we’ll describe what we’ve observed, and what happened to us, and how it is affecting us, now. Our symptom may be a heavy heart due to loss; it may be the malaise of regret or the paralysis of indecision. Whatever our symptoms, they will make themselves known during these encounters. Again, if the physician is astute, the encounter is more than merely processing information: it is an opportunity for communication with God. And, if we are willing to reflect long enough, we can begin to understand our experience, and to heal.
A Gift to Match a Calling
The gift of faith to medicine is not the miraculous. Oh, miracles occur – and they are noteworthy. Patients have conditions that resolve spontaneously; the extremely fragile survive against
all odds amidst trauma or insidious illness. There are those who answer the command to arise, take up their bed, and walk. These are rare, but they are worthwhile to repeat. But these experiences, while sensational, are rare. More importantly, they are all eventually undone – because everyone is mortal, and even those who are miraculously healed will again become ill, later. None of those miracles lasts forever. Faith offers, though, something better: hope. While miracles are short-lived, hope lasts even longer than our frail bodies. When we lose someone we love, the miraculous healing is no more – but faith offers a more abiding gift: the hope of seeing our loved ones again, and the hope that they are at peace. This hope is more comforting than any degree of physical health, because it is unassailable: death can take our bodies, but illness and the cares of mortality are unable to take our hope for a bright future, and peaceful reunions with those we love.
A Sacred Stewardship
This gift of hope extends to the life of a physician, and makes a professional relationship with a patient something more – something, essentially, sacred. A physician and their patient are not just a trained professional and a paying customer – they are a team designed to combat illness and death, and facilitate living. A demanding process! But when both physician and patient understand the sanctity of life, and undertake to make it both long and fulfilling, they can move forward with purpose and a common goal. In line with that purpose, faith offers the gift of wonder. Our bodies, though fragile, house something even more intricate, and even more resilient: the human soul. When the study of physiology and anatomy is combined with a reverence for its creator, we are
See Read, page 35 lecom.edu | winter 2013 | lecom connection 23