 The Summer Medical Institute |
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- Training a new generation of healthcare providers - |
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2008 SMI Stories & Testimonies
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There’s a frame hanging up right above my desk at home with two pictures and a few words. It has a picture of some of my friends ministering to a family in the colonias in south Texas and the other picture shows a bunch of medical students and patients crowded in a church in Mexico. In between the two pictures is a reminder to myself: “So I never forget… Medicine as a ministry”.
Before I came to SMI I hadn’t even started medical school. So with very little medical training, I was a little unsure as to what I would do or how the month would go. I was also the only one coming from Texas and knew nobody going to SMI. My concerns up to SMI revolved around what my medical role would be, but God ended up working in my life beyond just the medical missions aspect of SMI. He clarified that medicine was my ministry, that He would give me the strength to endure all the years of training, and that being a part of His ministry under the care of His guidance would be the best place to be.
Three months in to my first year of medical school I have no doubts that SMI was God’s way of preparing me for the difficult times ahead. It has only been three months in to my career and already I have had to look up at the picture frame a few times. My frame above the desk and the memories of what happened at SMI have reminded me that it is God who gives us the strength to keep working for His will in the world and that we can often find encouragement in Christian friends. As health care professionals we have a unique ministry, one that allows us to care for people in a very visible way, and SMI, for me, was the best place to learn how to incorporate God’s love in to caring for people’s physical needs.
Eunice Lee TTUHSC-SOM 1st year medical student
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My experience at SMI was one
where I remember and think, "God changed me there."
My view of medicine is forever changed.
After shadowing and interacting with the Christian doctors from
the Valley Baptist Residency at the clinic sites in Mexico and the residency practice in Texas, I have a much
clearer understanding of what God wants from me as a physician.
It's not about healing and helping as many people as possible,
but asking God to work through me and being open to whatever that might
entail, and being satisfied with the work because it is the Lord's. My
first patient I saw with Dr Moslener was the first patient that I had
ever prayed with.
Maggie Landgrebe NYCOM 2nd year medical student
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I am so thankful that the Lord made it possible for me to return to the SMI in July, 2008. There has been no other experience in medicine as fulfilling as my time in Harlingen and Matamoros. Here, I had the privilege of working with other believers to bring physical healing but far more importantly, the life-changing message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. During this time, the Lord was also doing a great work in my own heart, convicting me of sin and reminding me of my own daily need of the cross. He gently reminded me of my complete inability to save myself and my desperate need of His grace. Truly, my joy is found in the unmerited favor that Jesus has extended to me and in response to this truth, I find the strength and the need to tell others of His love. The outreaches in Texas and Mexico made it clear to me how God, in His sovereignty, can use ordinary medical students to bring forth this message of mercy and forgiveness.
Mike Boyer UPenn 4th year medical student
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This past summer, I took a step out of the normal, the
comfortable, the self-centric life, and waded into the unknown splendor
of life in perpetual service.
The SMI experience is defined by service; service of self to the
Lord, service of love to every person the Lord sets before you, service
by Grace of sharing the Truth of Jesus Christ.
For one month, I was given the opportunity to step away from my
own desires and walk in the wake of God.
The SMI was made possible for me as I was permitted to
bring my wife (not a medical student), who was as blessed as I by this
opportunity to experience medical missions.
(Medical Missions: A
life-mission of service to God that happens to be spent in medicine, not
a medical career with God on Sundays.)
Of any summer experience, I can not imagine one better spent than
within the loving community of the SMI, putting to practice God's Word,
and bringing hope and love to people desperate for help.
Edward M. Henderson PCOM 2nd year medical student
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Augustine said, “O Lord, you have made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” This summer was another time when God taught me to rest in Him. I supplemented most of my pre-medical school education with experience as a member of a fast-paced team in an inner-city emergency department. I constantly chased after the exhilarating, emotionally draining cases. My passion in medicine was to see the most life-threatening, critical cases possible. But the more I saw the more I wanted to experience. I couldn’t get enough; it was addicting. Medicine wasn’t satisfying. I came to SMI because I recognized God’s desire for me not to waste my life on a career in medicine that was devoid of Him, yet I did not have a specific calling to overseas missions. SMI was a perfect experience for someone like me. Not only did I have the opportunity to see the struggles and difficulties of missionary doctors at the Mexico clinics but I also witnessed the faithfulness of Christian doctors practicing in the US.
SMI was a defining and refining period of my life. It was defining because it changed my perspective on medicine and gave me a picture of what it practically means to be a Christian doctor. It was refining because it began a process of stripping away what I thought was so great about medicine and started to replace it with pure God-focused service.
SMI was the first time I was satisfied with medicine. It wasn’t about the medicine anymore; it was about Christ as the center of medicine.
“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:13-14
Jeremy Korteweg Temple 2nd year medical student
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I didn't know that practices like this could exist in America! It was shocking... praying in a circle with the staff before starting the day, praying with all patients who wanted it, going on missions trips as part of your residency education, seeing patients tear up because you're moving away... can this be real?
Apparently it is in Harlingen, Texas.
After a year of doing rounds in hospitals and clinics throughout
San Francisco, I was starting to wonder why I had
decided to invest my time, money, and energy into this field.
It seemed filled with disgruntled, unhappy people, tired of
teaching students and most of all, tired of complaining patients. I knew I needed to be reminded of why I had decided to go into healthcare. Several of my friends had raved about going to SMI, so I knew that was where I needed to be the summer after my first year.
It was quite an eventful summer, setting up clinics in churches throughout Matamoros Mexico, daily devotionals, Sonic runs, and even experiencing a hurricane for the first time (frightening for a California girl :))! But what I will remember the most vividly from SMI was the character of the doctors and nurses I met there, the heart of my fellow SMIers in wanting to serve God in every capacity, and seeing what a God-centered practice could look like. Come here if you want to learn what Christ-centered healthcare looks like, come here if you need a reminder of what a privilege it is to serve patients, come here if you want to make like-minded friends from all over the states.
Christina Ha UCSF 1st Year Clinical Nurse Midwife/Women's Health Nurse Practitioner student
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(C) 2005 The Summer Medical Institute |
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