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Physician Leaders in Ministry Program

Probably no effort has energized me more the past six weeks than a project currently referred to as the Physician Leaders in Ministry Program. Let me describe its origins, why we are pursuing it and what I’d like to accomplish through it.

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In some ways it began with the growing success of the Avera Leaders in Ministry Program, an offering for Avera leaders that involves nine monthly gatherings at the Broom Tree Retreat and Conference Center in Irene, S.D. Fifteen applicants are chosen each year, and they meet for 24 hours each month, beginning at noon on a Thursday and going until noon the following day. They listen to presentations, engage in discussions and have time for personal reflection and prayer.   A core team of five people guides the program and provides some of the input. The rest of the input is provided by adjunct faculty from Mount Marty College , the Avera Central Office and the Catholic Health Association in St. Louis , Mo.

A simple image for thinking about our ministry is a triangle. At the three corners are the main groups that organize and operationalize the ministry’s caring efforts for the patient and his or her supporters in the center. The three groups are our administrators/managers, our staff and our physicians.

Of late, as I have thought about these three groups and the extent to which we support them spiritually, I’ve found myself asking, “What are we doing for our physicians?” I know we have nourishing programs and rituals for our managers and staff, but what do we provide to support and develop our physicians?

On two occasions in recent months we raised those very questions with the physician leaders who comprise the Avera McKennan Primary Care Network, and in the ensuing discussions a subsequent question was posed, “Could Avera provide a program for physicians comparable to the Avera Leaders in Ministry Program?” Most of the 45 leaders who have participated in it so far will testify that was an enriching experience for them spiritually, theologically, professionally and personally.

In addition to the above, I have heard or read several comments in recent months that have stayed with me concerning the well-being of physicians. These writings or utterances have served as a prod: “Is there something Avera could do in response?”

Here are some of those comments:

  • On more than one occasion I have heard an Avera regional president make a reference to the trying “mid-life crises” he sees many physicians struggling with today. More than ever before he witnesses newly established physicians asking themselves the question, “Is this what I really want to do for the rest of my life?”
  • In his new book, A Balm for Gilead: Meditations on Spirituality and the Healing Arts, Daniel P. Sulmasy, OFM , MD , has made these comments:
    • “Although many physicians are undoubtedly saints, as a whole, one could say that physicians today constitute a “prodigal profession.” As a group, as a social institution, as a profession, physicians seem to have lost their way. In the depths of our hearts, we know this to be true. Those of us who practice this profession will never find our way back home unless we recognize how lost we have become.”
    • “Dissolute living leads inevitably to dissolution. As a result, despite all the good news, despite the fact that we are capable of doing so much more for our patients than our predecessors could for theirs, health care professionals today are among the most dissatisfied of all professions in the United States .
    • Those of us who are physicians know in our hearts that there is a better way. We are starving for that way. Our clinical hunger for rendering compassionate care persists. But we are caught in a world of alienation, deceit, greed and technocratic indifference – a deep spiritual famine. Like the prodigal son, the prodigal profession finds itself scrounging for scraps of meaning in a system of health care that is increasingly devoid of meaning. [49]

So there you have some of the motivation and history for this program. But now, what would I like to see accomplished? Simply put I’d like to provide a forum for physicians to listen to and share with one another about why they became physicians in the first place, what inspired them to enter medicine and what they want to accomplish with the rest of their lives.

I’d like to provide our Avera physicians with some time to think about matters more critical than productivity demands, bureaucratic requirements and evidence-based medicine, important as those concerns may be.

I’d like to arrange an extended retreat where physician leaders might be touched and healed themselves, to the extent they are in pain, by the only One who is able to heal anybody.

Finally, I’d like Avera to be filled with a multitude of physician leaders who find fulfillment in their vocation and are deeply committed to the task that all of us managers, staff and physicians share, that of letting people who are suffering or in pain know through our care that God is with them here on the Northern Plains.