IS A BEAUTIFUL THING
The Marc A. Lehmann Spirit of Service Award Foundation is honoring Louisville’s most compassionate caregivers
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By MARIAH KLINE
arc Lehmann was a recent graduate of St. Xavier High School and a freshman at the University of Louisville when he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. He spent the next several years pursuing treatment in hospitals throughout the country. During the course of his illness, he encountered hundreds of doctors, nurses and aides who made an impression on him. “He told me, ‘Dad, I can tell you within two minutes when a caregiver walks in my room if they give a damn whether I live or die,’” says George Lehmann, Marc’s father and a survivor of stage four urethral cancer. Marc died in 2012 at the age of 27. The following year, his father teamed up with Marc’s acquaintance Paul Resch, a long-term survivor of acute myelogenous OCTOBER 2019
leukemia, to start a charitable foundation to honor those who provide exceptional care in oncology. The mission of the Marc A. Lehmann Spirit of Service Award Foundation is to recognize these individuals and foster this benevolent behavior in the medical community. Each October, they hold the Spirit of Service Awards Banquet to acknowledge one support staff member and one physician from each local hospital system. “We’re trying to encourage doctors and let them know that (their) caring makes a difference,” says Lehmann. “There’s a big burnout rate with oncologists, especially these days, and there’s data that shows the burnout rate reduces when doctors get invested in their patients, not when they separate themselves.” Countless organizations are working to find cures for cancer, but what Lehmann, Resch and so many others have discovered is that the personal interactions with medical personnel are as significant as the treatments. “You want to have that relationship and comfort level,” Resch says, “because the
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– Marc A. Lehmann
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Non Profit Profile
Dad, I can tell you within two minutes when a caregiver walks in my room if they give a damn whether I live or die.” VO I C E -T R I B U N E . C O M |
THE VOICE OF LOUISVILLE
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