Sometimes I just stop and reflect on all the years that have passed since I began my journey to become an osteopathic physician in 1981.
Many thousands of patients from every conceivable background, from a few days old to almost 100, have come to ask for help with very real problems.
Like most medical students I initially believed that I would receive the tools and instructions that would enable me to cure my patients.
What a fool I was.
The first day of school an old doctor addressed our class. No one whom I later spoke with knew who he was or where he came from. He was a total mystery.
He stood quietly before the 135 assembled freshmen students of the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, Class of 1985 ( I graduated in 1987 because I was awarded a two year Fellowship in Osteopathic Diagnosis and Treatment). Then he opened his mouth and said, None of you will ever cure anyone. We all work with the Great Healer, the Real Doctor. Never forget it.
Then he turned and walked away.
A few students looked at each other and said, What was that all about?
Well, I now know a little bit of what the Old Doctor was talking about.
It has taken me about twenty plus years to be humbled enough, beaten down enough, crushed enough by life, by cancer, heart attacks, major depression, having lost my practice three times and built it back up after devastating illnesses, to begin to realize that the man was telling us all what we really needed to know to become real doctors.
But at the time I had no idea what he was talking about.
I thank God daily that I am doing this Holy Work and that He is leading me in His Work.
And I am not ashamed to say that to anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
Andrew Taylor Still, MD, the man who discovered osteopathy, once said, I love my patients because when I look in their eyes I see God.
I couldn’t agree more.