One Doctor's Spiritual Journey (So Far)

Health Progress, May/Jun 2006 by Phelps, Gregory

I entered Aquinas's program in health care mission in 2003. The program-which involved online discussion of readings followed by an intensive weekend at the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph-was just what I was looking for to feed my spiritual needs. I had long thought that the Gospels focused more on healing than anything else-except teaching. The Aquinas program helped me place my thoughts in context. It began with courses called "Introduction to Theology," moved on to "Old and New Testament," and then blazed into the territory where health care and mission reside together. In these classes, we looked at health care ethics, Catholic social justice teachings, health care as ministry, moral theology, health care policy, the healing sacraments, and other topics.

In large part, the program has helped me give voice and name to what and why we do health care as a ministry. At St. Mary's, as I've said, I have found a spiritual home. It is not that we who work at the hospital do not face hard choices or difficult days. But mission is seen as a substantial counterweight to purely bottom-line concerns. Our management team spends time on spiritual matters and sees our faith-based orientation as one of our major strengths. As a result, our work means far more to us than simply making a living-it involves helping people with their lives.

At Aquinas, I learned to put a name on the poor and underserved who are St. Mary's central mission: the anawin, a Hebrew word meaning "the poor of God." The anawim are not merely poor people. They are society's dispossessed and outcast. St. Mary's ethics committee, which I chair, homed in on the issue of billing the uninsured-health care's anawim-before it became a national scandal. Along with St. Mary's chief financial officer and other executives, our committee created a new billing policy that has since become a model for all member organizations of the system to which we belong, Catholic Healthcare Partners, Cincinnati.

Another Aquinas project that we suggested to St. Mary's executive team is called Project Access. The team agreed that our facility should participate. Project Access involves area hospitals and the Knoxville Academy of Medicine in a charity program that essentially functions as health care insurance for the area's uninsured. A key point I learned at Aquinas is that we are "co-creators of God's kingdom." If God's kingdom is to he brought into this world, it is our charge, with God's help, to do it. Because this is so, care of the anawim/uninsured is not merely a financial problem but a theological one as well. At this point, theology and health care come together!

In my own life, my spirituality has grown as I have become more reflective, more generous, and less pushed. Frenetically active as a younger physician, I now give more time and money to things that matter, such as an interfaith clinic that provides care to our area's working poor. I speak in the community about health issues. I have put aside some of my self-importance (an occupational hazard for doctors) and have learned to pass the tough problems on to God-most of the time. My own practice is now principally concerned with the care of opiate addicts and alcoholics. These are my own personal population of the anawim, if ever there was one.