Alumni Stories
While spending four weeks in California at the Whole Person Care Preceptorship is worthwhile, the most important issue is how the training will help you in your future healthcare practice. Below are two stories from preceptorship alumni who are incorporating their faith into their daily patient care.
Scott Fujimoto
Medical Student
Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine, Vallejo
Hi everyone! I'm on call tonight and have a little time. Just wanted to share a story from my first week on surgical rotations. I have logged 70 hours in my first 5 days yet I praise God for giving me the weekend off since Sunday was Michelle and my 1st wedding anniversary!
Surgery is a lot of scrambling around and I was having trouble finding the time to have personal conversations with patients other than to ask about their bowel functions. On Wednesday I had to do a full history and physical on a patient and my attending gave me all of 15 minutes to complete it.
The patient, A, was a diabetic with gangrene and she was just told they were going to have to amputate. She was bawling when I got to the room and throughout the whole H&P. I did manage to ask if she were religious or spiritual and she identified herself as a Christian. However she had been drinking every day for 2 years since her husband died, who she described as 'her rock'. I prayed with her and told her I'd visit her in the hospital. I didn't get to see her for two days and finally on Friday I was convicted that no matter how tired I was I would see her after I was done on Friday.
By this time A had undergone the procedure and was still unhappy about her situation to say the least. She felt as if she was being punished by God and didn't know how He could be loving or forgiving. She also wasn't exactly clear on who Jesus was. In spite of all of this, she said was searching for peace in the midst of everything. I offered to show her how she could achieve that. I presented to her the gospel and tried to remove some of her misconceptions. When we got to the sinner's prayer I asked her if it represented the desire of her heart. She said it did, but she said that she still didn't have faith or fully believe Christ paid for all of our sins. I offered my testimony and shared the gospel again through my story and relating it to hers. I even incorporated other real-life accounts to illustrate the awesome power that God has to individual needs. She was enthralled.
Right then a nurse interrupted for vitals, and then A got a phone call. And then 3 members of my surgery team came to check on her and gave a funny look when they saw me in her room.
It's amazing how often this all happens at the worst time. Trust me, it will happen to you... the enemy is paying attention. Just remember that faith is not an impulse.
When the commotion subsided, I offered to pray for her and that she was welcome to jump in or go off on her own prayer if it moved her to. It wasn't long before she drifted off and started asking Him for forgiveness. I started into the sinner's prayer and she repeated it.
She was beaming. I asked her if now she believed that Christ paid the death penalty for her. She said yes. I asked, "Did He?" She said, "I know He did." I asked where Christ was now and she said He's in her heart. She told me she would do everything she could to take care of herself if He would get her through this. I had told her earlier that the only way she would take care of herself was if she understood that she was precious and worthwhile. Now that A knows that she is precious and worthwhile to God, she has a new purpose.
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Janet Ma
Fourth Year Medical Student
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
I just wanted to share a little bit about how God has been so faithful to me about whole person care over the past week. I had my Family Medicine OSCE last Friday, and then finished my last week of Family Medicine this week. During the preceptorship, I had made a commitment to ask at least one spiritual care question per patient I see, if not go further per the Holy Spirit's prompting.
I was a little nervous going in on Monday, not knowing how best to incorporate spiritual care, but as the day went on, I found that it was not as difficult as I had previously thought. I was able to ask my patients about their sources of strength, if they consider themselves to be persons of faith, what their faith means to them, etc. God even opened the doors to pray with three of my patients on Monday. :)
The only problem became that instead of taking 15 min to see each patient (the time allotted to each patient), I was taking 30 minutes to see each patient, and so my preceptor (who is Christian) ran behind on her schedule. She was very patient with me at first, but I could tell as the day went on that her frustration started to build, and when I left Monday at 5 PM, she still had four more patients left to see.
I went home that day confused and frustrated as well, yet I was thankful that I had those spiritual care experiences that day. I could see that my patients were encouraged through them, but at the same time I didn't want to slow my preceptor down and become a burden to her. I prayed for God's guidance that night.
When I arrived on Tuesday, the first thing my preceptor did was to thank me for being a big help to her. She said that instead of slowing her down, she realized that I was helping her by seeing half of her patients and writing the notes for her, which ended up saving her a lot of time that day. When I went in on Wednesday, she repeated the same thing to me, and thanked me for helping her this week.
I was completely blown away by my preceptor's reaction. And then I realized God's plan in all of this, that when we're faithful to Him to do the things that glorify Him, He is completely faithful back to us beyond our imagination. Not only was I able to continue to practice whole person care (and my speed improved throughout the week), I was able to help my preceptor to get her work done. Plus, God helped me to build a great relationship with my preceptor. I even had a chance to share with her a bit about the whole person care preceptorship and gave her a copy of our preceptorship newsletter. Isn't God simply so awesome? :)
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