I am currently learning how to heal, relieve and cure, His wonderful creation, the human body, as a Physician Assistant Student (PA-S) at Mercer University. One of the many reasons that I chose to attend school at Mercer was due to the fact that they team up with Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) and Global Health Outreach (GHO) to send students on a Medical Mission trip over our two-week summer break. We applied for the trip in our first semester of school and I was so fortunate to be given the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua with 8 of my classmates the week of August 1st-August 9th. As the trip date started to approach and my inbox became flooded with daily with team emails and dates for periods of fasting, I found myself questioning whether or not I was truly ready for a trip of this nature.
This trip came at a really pertinent time in my life. At the end of 2014 I was diagnosed with skin cancer and two weeks after, I moved 800 miles away from the only place I have ever called “home,” leaving my family and the friends that I had grown to be so close with. I started school and the exhilaration of moving to a new a place, chasing my dream, and the encouragement from my 49 other classmates was enough to keep me going. However, not having the support system nearby that I so desperately craved, quickly caught up to me and I began feeling two very unfamiliar emotions: lonely and lost. My confidence began to dwindle; I started questioning myself, my Faith, what I was doing with my life and if PA School was really the right place for me. As it turns out, going on this trip with no expectations besides the ideal of losing myself through the service of Christ, was exactly what I needed to find myself again and become more steadfast in my Faith.
Our third day in Nicaragua and our first day in the clinic, I was working with Dr. Gregory Golden, a sarcastic, witty Pulmonologist from Colorado. I loved every minute that I spent working with him. I could tell that he was apprehensive about working with a PA-S for the first time. However, he put all his speculations aside and listened to my input. He helped me understand every time I was wrong, challenged me when I was sure I was right, and questioned my differentials and pathophysiology understanding of disease manifestations. He really showed me how to think through each individual case that we were presented with by starting from the basics of how the body works. I watched as he took the time to make each of our patients feel as if they were the only one in the room, even with all of the hustle and bustle going on around us. He would grab their hands and listen with full intention to every word that they were saying, regardless if it was pertinent to their visit or not. His interactions were intense and deeper than I was used to seeing and by watching them I sometimes felt as if I was interrupting the private moment he spent bonding with each patient. He related to each patient, indicating to them that we are all brothers and sisters through Christ and prayed for them with so much concern for their well being. He instilled within them the little bit of hope that they needed. The provider and patient exchange I saw as I worked with him was so genuine and full of love and they are exactly the type of interactions I want to have with my patients one day. However, Dr. Golden did so much more for me than show me the type of provider that I can and want to be.
Later that afternoon that I was working with him, a young pregnant female came and sat down at our station. She came to us that day with "severe abdominal pain" and Dr. Golden left it up to me take her history and perform her exam. I went through our typical routine, asking the appropriate questions and working with the translator to figure out more about her symptoms and her pain. I examined her in our makeshift exam room and then talked through what I found with Dr. Golden, making sure that I understood what could be causing her pain and why. He then discussed our diagnosis and treatment plan with her and afterwards turned to me and said, “Would you pray for her?”
I think my jaw dropped; me…pray..out loud..for someone I barely knew anything about? I had never been asked this before and I turned to him and said “I am not comfortable doing that, I do not think I am ready.”
He did not make me feel pressured by any means, but he looked me right in the eyes and said “This patient trusts you, you took her through her exam and made her feel comfortable, you are more ready than you think you are.”
With a deep breath, I took one of her hands in my own and placed the other on her pregnant belly. I listened to my voice shake as I began to speak and was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of clarity. My voice stopped shaking and I found words flowing out of my mouth so comfortably, as if I had planned and been practicing the prayer I was going to recite. I felt at ease doing something that I was at first so uncomfortable with; praying that Christ allow her to heal, have a safe pregnancy and that her child be born following the path of Christianity. As I said my declaration “amen” and opened my eyes, I saw a smile and tears in hers.
Matthew 10:20, is a verse that I believe captures exactly what I was feeling:
“At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
In that moment, with the patients hand in mine, and Dr. Golden’s hand on my shoulder, I felt His Spirit speaking through me and the Faith that I was beginning to lose, not only spiritually but within myself, was so easily restored.
With all the thanks I can give to Dr. Golden for encouraging me to speak the words I was so scared to say, I came back from Nicaragua to start my third semester of school with a totally different outlook and a remembrance as to why I wanted to be a Physician Assistant. I still have a desire to get good grades and do well in school, but have also come to the realization that it is not always about getting an “A” on a test. That “A” does not always show how well you can apply the material when you are out practicing. An "A" does not show the love that you will have for your patients, how well you will get to know and interact with them, the tears that you will shed alongside them, or the pain that you will feel for them.
After I made these realizations, I quickly found myself met with the confusion as to why I was the one that was so blessed to be in this situation in the first place. Why was I blessed to grow up in a loving, compassionate, prosperous family that continuously supports me? Why did I have the nice car and the opportunity to go to school? Why was I born in America able to enjoy all the freedoms that we have here? Why this, why that…. Why me? and Why them? Why did they have so little access to medicine and sanitary water? Why did they have they daily struggles that they did?
It seems so unfair to me but looking back. Dr. Golden showed me that I have these things, because I was blessed to be a blessing. We all were, in some way, and we need to use those blessings to their fullest capacity, to help others in any way that we can. God blessed me with intelligence, an understanding for the sciences, a desire to learn, a love for people and an empathetic personality. This trip showed me that I was not using these traits to the best of my abilities and I returned to school with my future patients as my motivation; learning the material for them and knowing that by incorporating my Faith into my practice I can better show my patients how much I care. As Ambroisé Pare, a famous surgeon once said, “I dressed him, God cured him,” because He is the Ultimate Healer and it is only through Him, that I can use the tools that I was provided with to heal and cure my future patients, it just took this trip to show me that.
This trip came at a really pertinent time in my life. At the end of 2014 I was diagnosed with skin cancer and two weeks after, I moved 800 miles away from the only place I have ever called “home,” leaving my family and the friends that I had grown to be so close with. I started school and the exhilaration of moving to a new a place, chasing my dream, and the encouragement from my 49 other classmates was enough to keep me going. However, not having the support system nearby that I so desperately craved, quickly caught up to me and I began feeling two very unfamiliar emotions: lonely and lost. My confidence began to dwindle; I started questioning myself, my Faith, what I was doing with my life and if PA School was really the right place for me. As it turns out, going on this trip with no expectations besides the ideal of losing myself through the service of Christ, was exactly what I needed to find myself again and become more steadfast in my Faith.
Our third day in Nicaragua and our first day in the clinic, I was working with Dr. Gregory Golden, a sarcastic, witty Pulmonologist from Colorado. I loved every minute that I spent working with him. I could tell that he was apprehensive about working with a PA-S for the first time. However, he put all his speculations aside and listened to my input. He helped me understand every time I was wrong, challenged me when I was sure I was right, and questioned my differentials and pathophysiology understanding of disease manifestations. He really showed me how to think through each individual case that we were presented with by starting from the basics of how the body works. I watched as he took the time to make each of our patients feel as if they were the only one in the room, even with all of the hustle and bustle going on around us. He would grab their hands and listen with full intention to every word that they were saying, regardless if it was pertinent to their visit or not. His interactions were intense and deeper than I was used to seeing and by watching them I sometimes felt as if I was interrupting the private moment he spent bonding with each patient. He related to each patient, indicating to them that we are all brothers and sisters through Christ and prayed for them with so much concern for their well being. He instilled within them the little bit of hope that they needed. The provider and patient exchange I saw as I worked with him was so genuine and full of love and they are exactly the type of interactions I want to have with my patients one day. However, Dr. Golden did so much more for me than show me the type of provider that I can and want to be.
Later that afternoon that I was working with him, a young pregnant female came and sat down at our station. She came to us that day with "severe abdominal pain" and Dr. Golden left it up to me take her history and perform her exam. I went through our typical routine, asking the appropriate questions and working with the translator to figure out more about her symptoms and her pain. I examined her in our makeshift exam room and then talked through what I found with Dr. Golden, making sure that I understood what could be causing her pain and why. He then discussed our diagnosis and treatment plan with her and afterwards turned to me and said, “Would you pray for her?”
I think my jaw dropped; me…pray..out loud..for someone I barely knew anything about? I had never been asked this before and I turned to him and said “I am not comfortable doing that, I do not think I am ready.”
He did not make me feel pressured by any means, but he looked me right in the eyes and said “This patient trusts you, you took her through her exam and made her feel comfortable, you are more ready than you think you are.”
With a deep breath, I took one of her hands in my own and placed the other on her pregnant belly. I listened to my voice shake as I began to speak and was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of clarity. My voice stopped shaking and I found words flowing out of my mouth so comfortably, as if I had planned and been practicing the prayer I was going to recite. I felt at ease doing something that I was at first so uncomfortable with; praying that Christ allow her to heal, have a safe pregnancy and that her child be born following the path of Christianity. As I said my declaration “amen” and opened my eyes, I saw a smile and tears in hers.
Matthew 10:20, is a verse that I believe captures exactly what I was feeling:
“At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
In that moment, with the patients hand in mine, and Dr. Golden’s hand on my shoulder, I felt His Spirit speaking through me and the Faith that I was beginning to lose, not only spiritually but within myself, was so easily restored.
With all the thanks I can give to Dr. Golden for encouraging me to speak the words I was so scared to say, I came back from Nicaragua to start my third semester of school with a totally different outlook and a remembrance as to why I wanted to be a Physician Assistant. I still have a desire to get good grades and do well in school, but have also come to the realization that it is not always about getting an “A” on a test. That “A” does not always show how well you can apply the material when you are out practicing. An "A" does not show the love that you will have for your patients, how well you will get to know and interact with them, the tears that you will shed alongside them, or the pain that you will feel for them.
After I made these realizations, I quickly found myself met with the confusion as to why I was the one that was so blessed to be in this situation in the first place. Why was I blessed to grow up in a loving, compassionate, prosperous family that continuously supports me? Why did I have the nice car and the opportunity to go to school? Why was I born in America able to enjoy all the freedoms that we have here? Why this, why that…. Why me? and Why them? Why did they have so little access to medicine and sanitary water? Why did they have they daily struggles that they did?
It seems so unfair to me but looking back. Dr. Golden showed me that I have these things, because I was blessed to be a blessing. We all were, in some way, and we need to use those blessings to their fullest capacity, to help others in any way that we can. God blessed me with intelligence, an understanding for the sciences, a desire to learn, a love for people and an empathetic personality. This trip showed me that I was not using these traits to the best of my abilities and I returned to school with my future patients as my motivation; learning the material for them and knowing that by incorporating my Faith into my practice I can better show my patients how much I care. As Ambroisé Pare, a famous surgeon once said, “I dressed him, God cured him,” because He is the Ultimate Healer and it is only through Him, that I can use the tools that I was provided with to heal and cure my future patients, it just took this trip to show me that.
