Spirit in Action
Medical Students Putting It On The Line
Recipients of the 2008 McGovern-Tracy Scholarships "exemplify the values of community service and leadership", and we visit with 5 of the med students recognized this year: Callie O'Neil, Michelle Buelow, Betsy Doherty, Joseph Hansen and Kevin Thao - great examples of the promise of the the upcoming generation of doctors.
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Aug 2008
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- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helps Meat. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ Today for Spirit in Action, we'll be talking with five medical students at the University of Wisconsin who were honored recently for their achievements. While they're all very good students of medicine, the aspect of their work that brought them recognition was there above and beyond the call of duty, service to the wider community. On June 3, 2008, they were among the honorees at a dinner recognizing special service of medical students and workers. On that night, the Tracy McGovern Scholars Award was bestowed upon seven people. I was able to connect with and interview five of them and want to share with you brief glimpses of who they are, how they're helping the community, and what motivates them. In the interest of transparency, I have to admit that one of them is my stepson, which is how I came to attend the banquet and learn of these outstanding individuals. I'm grateful for the work and witness of all of these fine young people in a field of work that can be extremely demanding and rewarding, especially for going beyond their already heavy workload and study loads to include additional care for the community. The McGovern Tracy Scholarship was established as the program for the dinner notes to honor and reward UW School of Medicine and Public Health students and residents in the DFM network of family medicine residencies. The endowment for the scholarship was by Isabel McGovern to honor the generations of the McGovern family who pioneered in Wisconsin. But this isn't recognition simply for being a good medical student. The Tracy part of the McGovern Tracy Scholarship is to honor Michelle Tracy, quote, whose remarkable spirit and record of service to communities typifies McGovern Tracy's scholars, unquote. This award goes primarily to second year medical students, I think, because Michelle Tracy was a second year UW medical student who was tragically killed while participating in an educational service program in Malawi, Africa in July 1999. As the program for the event notes, the students and residents honored here this evening exemplified the values of community service and leadership. In my interviews with the five recipients I was able to connect with, I found it to be true. These are some inspirational individuals doing hard, rewarding, worthwhile work and finding devotion and care to go to the extra mile. In my words, clearly demonstrating spirit in action. So I want to introduce you briefly to each of the five awardees, and I think you may come away with a very hopeful view of what our future doctors are motivated by. Certainly the lure of stable, dependable work, but especially by work that does good to the outer world. Let's turn to my first interviewee, Callie O'Neill. Listen to the bio they prepared for Callie. Callie believes that one mazungu with a white coat has the possibility to help facilitate real change. In the classroom she developed working peer partnerships to coordinate the healthcare and diverse communities spring elective. Callie has also worked as a teaching assistant in an academic tutor, balancing the role of leadership with partnership to better aid her peers. She has engaged in community service by being a member of MEDIC, a student advocate for the Mothers in Maternity Support Program, and volunteering at annual events like the MSMC Health Fair. But Callie's most inspirational experience happened during her time spent in a small parish in Uganda, where she was able to take an active role in a now thriving community. Let's go to the phone now and visit with Callie O'Neill, one of the 2008 McGovern-Tracy Scholars. Callie, thanks for joining me for spirit in action. Thank you for having me. And congratulations on being a recipient of the McGovern-Tracy Award. How did it feel when you first heard about that? It was a huge honor just to be considered for the award, I think first and foremost was a huge honor. And then to see the group that I was included with all of the other recipients are really great people and have done a lot of great work, so just a little privilege. In describing your own words, which of your activities you think appealed to them to give you this award, what inspired them, and I guess maybe from your side, which of your activities you feel were the most valuable that you've done. I think working with the medic organization, which is six free clinics run by students in the Madison community, was a really rewarding experience and challenging as well. Serving as vice president took on a lot of responsibility for the financial stability of the organization and being able to help and serve the population that's in such need was really just a great experience and a great outside of the classroom kind of educational piece. About how many people come to these free clinics that you sponsor? This past year we were able to serve about 1,300 patients. And how much time does this involve for you or for other volunteers? There's a lot of hours put in by a number of health profession students, pharmacy students, physical therapy, physicians assistant, nursing students, and the medical students as well. We have about 450 student volunteers that staff the clinics. And then as far as the council is concerned, that's about 30 students who put in an extra amount of time to kind of organize and coordinate all the clinics. And for myself, it would be about anywhere from 5 to 10 hours a week. And how can you possibly squeeze in that much extra time? When you're going through medical school, doesn't medical school require about 37 hours per day? It certainly seems like it requires 37 hours a day sometimes. But I think what really makes the difference is I can speak for myself and say that I really felt committed to helping the population and the community. I think it's really important to be connecting what we're doing in the classroom and seeing that we're really learning something. You just find time for the things that are important to you and I think that's what happened here. And why is this so important to you? Why did you decide to become a doctor? Why are you moving in this direction? And again, with a very, very busy schedule, why is it important to squeeze this in at this point? I mean, you're going to have plenty of times to doctor people as time goes by. Well, I've been in medicine for going on 7 years now. I feel really connected to this community. The reason I got into medicine in the first place has a lot to do with serving populations that aren't able to really help themselves. Like I said, I just can't seem to find a way to not want to spend my time doing that. And it's a great way to reconnect with why I came to medical school in the first place. In the bio that they had on you, in the awards ceremony, they had a quote evidently from you. The quote said, "Cally believes that one mazungu with a white coat has a possibility and a privilege to help facilitate real change." And as soon as I saw that, I said, "I have to talk to this woman." How many other people there actually knew what a mazungu was? And I had been in Rwanda, which is of course right next to Uganda. I had been there just a few months before in mazungu. What was your experience over there in Uganda? My trip to Uganda was probably one of the most formative experiences I've had thus far. I spent about three weeks with 12 of my other classmates traveling around the country, going into rural villages, seeing the first-level healthcare clinics, which are really just a one-room building, and someone who's trained as a nurse there to kind of triage people all the way up to the tertiary care hospital in Kampala. And I think what really struck me there was how much they were able to do with such limited resources. Healthcare in those communities was really a community effort, and the people connected with one another. And I was able to just see some really impressive demonstrations of what healthcare can be if everybody's looking out for one another. When I came back was when I really felt compelled to do something else and to really try and make an impact. You know, this program, Cali, is called Spirit in Action. And when I saw the six of you speaking at the Ward Center, I was very aware of how strong Spirit was running. Now, the word "community" was used a lot in the awards, but I was also wondering about your background. I was wondering about the spiritual religious, the formative view that you have of the world that motivates you to do this kind of work. How does it play a part in what you're led to do and what you're strongly committed to? I really learned a sense of community from my family. My dad comes from, he's got seven brothers and sisters, big family, and we spend all of the holidays together. And I think it's just that sense of connectedness and that we all share this world with one another. I think that that has just extended beyond my family for me and into my communities, whether that be my community here in Madison, my classmates, or the community in Uganda that I really connected with while I was there traveling and learning. Is there a community that you wouldn't connect with? I mean, one of the possibilities certainly being a highly trained physician in the United States is to serve those with the most money because they're the ones who can actually pay for all of the equipment and pay for the finest healthcare. Where are you drawn specifically? What's your motivation? Because I think that some people think you go to medical school so you can get that high paying physician job so you can be rich. I think the one equalizer in life is probably that when you're sick, you want someone to tell you that you're going to be okay to help you regardless of whether you have $2 million in your bank account or you don't even have a bank account. And I think that that's part of the beauty of practicing medicine is that at the end of the day, no amount of money can necessarily control illness. It breaks everybody down into a place of need at some point or another. And I just hope that I can be the one there to offer some reassurance and just lift spirits a little bit. My heart is really in serving those who are underserved, underinsured, uninsured, which hopefully sometime in the future will not be the case. Your comment about the need to cover everyone medically. Does this make you one of those flaming liberals who believes that we need to reorganize how medical care is provided to the average individual here in the United States? Certainly call me what you will, but I do believe that as far as health care is concerned, it's become too much of something that is saved for those who can pay for it and get the best, but there's no reason that people should feel that they have to wait to seek health care until situation is so dire that they're really doing much more harm to themselves by waiting to seek health care because they can't afford it. And I think that that's something that I would hope we could resolve in my lifetime. Thanks so much, Kelly. You're an inspiration to me. The service you're providing to the world already. You work with Medic. Your trip over to Uganda and your aspirations to continue that kind of work. It's just wonderful stuff and I'm right behind your chair and all the way. So thanks so much, Kelly. Great. Thank you very much, Mark. It's been a great privilege to be on the show. That was Callio Neal, one of the recipients of the 2008 McGovern-Tracy Scholars Award of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in Madison. I'm Mark Helpsmeet of Northern Spirit Radio, and this program is Spirit in Action. I'm speaking with five of the medical students who received this award, five people who have exemplified spirit in action by their service to the wider community. At the same time, they are digging their way through medical school. Second on my contact list is Michelle Buolo. Michelle has a lot to offer to the medical world and a generous heart and spirit to offer along with that. Her bio from the awards dinner announces that Michelle believes that future physicians such as herself should try to alleviate some of the struggles of the underserved by providing access to quality and affordable health care to all, regardless of race, ethnicity, cultural beliefs, or geographical location in the world. Inspired by Dr. Peter Havens, Michelle has committed herself to working with the underserved and uninsured. She was first exposed as a medical assistant at Walker's Point Community Clinic in Milwaukee. Later, she went on to work as a liaison to the U.S. for "Walking with Children" in Honduras. Michelle plans to return to Walker's Point as part of the "urban underserved track" at the UW. Here is Michelle Buolo joining us by phone from Madison, Wisconsin. Michelle, I'm very happy that you could join me today for spirit in action. Well, thank you for having me. You were recognized as a McGovern-Tracy scholar, Michelle, because of extra service that you put in. One of the things it mentioned in your bio is that you did service at the Walker's Point Medical Clinic. You were helping out there. When was that and what kind of work were you doing there? That was actually the year after I graduated from undergrad before I started medical school. I did some service work, and it was just -- basically, it was a federally qualified health center in the south side of Milwaukee, and it served basically immigrant, Spanish-speaking population. So, I was a Spanish major, and that's always been a population that I've been extremely interested in. I basically just went there once a week and served kind of as a medical assistant and just did basically whatever they needed me to do, just intake and outtake of patients and putting together diabetes education manuals and things like that. So, I did that right before I actually went to Honduras. And what was this trip to Honduras about? The first time I went was for four months, and that was before I started the first year of med school. I really just wanted to go abroad, serve in a Latin community, and especially in the HIV/AIDS community. So, I basically just somehow got connected with a woman who is originally from the U.S., but she's been in Honduras for ten years now. I contacted her, and she was starting a foundation for kids with HIV, went down and just helped her out, just getting the foundation started. When you talked about your choice of locations there, you mentioned a couple of things you mentioned abroad. It's Hispanic, it's Spanish speaking, and you mentioned that you wanted to work with AIDS and clientele or help out in that area. Why that special interest? That comes from a variety of things, but I studied abroad in Spain when I was a junior in college. Spanish has always been one of my passions, but the HIV/AIDS part comes in at a totally different aspect. When I came back from Spain, I shadowed a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Milwaukee. He worked with the HIV/AIDS population in Milwaukee. I shadowed him, and the population is an incredible population in the U.S., as well as basically anywhere. They're just dealing with a variety of different social issues. I just found that that was something that I was almost like called to do. I wanted to learn more about it and see if there was anything that I could do to, I guess, make a difference. I somehow got connected with this woman and just wanted to go out and I wanted to learn more about the HIV/AIDS community and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Honduras. The second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and it has 60% of all HIV cases in Central America and makes up only 17% of its population. So it's a huge disparity between Honduras and the rest of Central America. I have a feeling that a lot of people out there believe that the reason you go to medical school is so you become rich and have a mansion and play golf. Yes, yes, sounds about right. Not so much. I don't really think that there's that mentality as much as people think there is at all. I actually don't think that that's probably the way you can go and live in a mansion. There's probably a lot easier ways you could do it than going to school for eight extra years. So if you're not going to medical school to get rich, I'm trying to get at the root motivations. The program, as I said, is spirit in action. And I'm trying to find out what the base motivation is, spiritual, religious, conceptual, whatever it is that forms the motivation for you to do this. Well, I think there's just so much that can be done in the world. I think it's kind of everyone's responsibility. I feel like it's whatever you become, I feel like everyone as a member of society has a responsibility and duty to help those people who are left privileged. And I feel like being a physician is an honor, but it's also a large responsibility to you have the ability to take care of people that might not have the resources. And so, for me, it's a way to actually -- it's a tangible way to give back and be able to actually make a difference. So do you have a particular spiritual, religious, or conceptual background that predisposes you in this direction? It's because your caring clearly is not just about people in your city, in your state. You're reaching internationally. Why care about these people, aren't they just -- when you say about giving back to the community, that's not a community that you've been part of? Yeah, exactly. Actually, I was raised Catholic all my life. And I guess it's just something that I've kind of always learned from my mom. She's always volunteered and done anything she can to help other people out. And so it's just kind of a part of something that I guess I was raised with. When I was speaking with Callie, she mentioned indirectly some of her beliefs about what her concerns imply for the national scene. So maybe I'll just ask you this. So, Michelle, what do you think it would be an appropriate way to deal with medicine in the United States differently than what we do now? Is there a change that you think would be good for our society as a whole? Oh, I definitely think that our healthcare system is in tremendous need of reform. There's a tremendous need for people who need healthcare and who don't have the opportunity to see a physician on a regular basis. And so I think there's definitely a lot that needs to be done. And hopefully with a new government coming up, maybe we'll be able to make some of those changes. But I think that as future physicians, we have that responsibility to reach out to those people who are underinsured or uninsured and try to make sure that they get some of the care that every person deserves. It's a basic human right. And it's something that if our government and our healthcare system doesn't allow people to receive care, then as future physicians, that's something that we should make sure that we can at least somehow contribute to that dire need. You have six more years ahead of you of medical learning. What's your eventual goal? Do you want to be working overseas part of the time or just occasionally community health centers like Walker's Point? What kind of places do you anticipate that you would like to work? You know, I'm not exactly sure how it's going to work out, but I hope to eventually be a primary care physician, probably doing family medicine. Working in underserved community health clinics, such as Walker's Point, definitely a serving the Latino population. And eventually, I would definitely have international health as part of my focus. Well, I'm going to suggest that you should join in with Callie and go over to Uganda and have a good time there for a while. It should be a great time. Sounds good. I think I haven't tried out Africa yet, so there's a large continent waiting for me. I don't know. I'd like to eventually go there as well as South America, because I've really only been in Central America so far. It's wonderful work that you're doing. I'm so glad that you were amongst the McGovern-Tracy Scholars selected for this year, and I wish you well on your future work and your first placement now as you get out there and start learning the real nuts and bolts of the medical world. Thank you very much. It definitely has been an honor, and I appreciate it. That was a young medical student. Michelle Buolo, one of the 2008 McGovern-Tracy awardees, and my next guest is Betsy Doherty. The program for the awards center has the following to say about Betsy. Betsy is highly admired by her peers due to her strong commitment to service. Betsy served as the Southside Clinic Coordinator in this year's Medic Council. She also assumed leadership for that MAP mentoring achievement program this year, and had the primary responsibility for expanding this program to new middle schools with a significant number of high-risk children. Betsy has facilitated workshops and training sessions for the locus organization, leadership opportunities with communities, the underserved, and special populations. Finally, she has coordinated a medical Spanish elective, led the Public Health in Medicine Interest Group, served as a Spanish translator for the Allied Drive Project, volunteered at the Salvation Army Clinic when it's short staffed, and spends for Sundays at the Savory Sunday Soup Kitchen. Let's join Betsy Doherty on the phone now. Betsy, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action. Thank you. Yours is one of a number of spirits in action that I'm talking to today because you were one of the 2008 McGovern-Tracy Scholars. How did it feel to get that award? It was quite an honor. I'm sure all of us feel that way. We have a class full of people who do great things, so it was very humbling to be among those recognized in this way. How did you get around to getting into medical school? Did you go directly there from undergraduate, or what was the path that led you to be motivated to do this tremendous undertaking? I did not go directly from college. I had had an interest in medicine, and so did the pre-med curriculum, but didn't pursue medical right away. I did some volunteering, some social service work, and a bunch of odd jobs in the Chicago area before I came around to med school. Social work. I don't think I imagined that most doctors get to medicine from social work. What kind of social work were you doing? I was working with high potential at risk use in the Chicago area as a house parent at a place called Girls Hope. Boys Hope Girls Hope is an international organization Jesuit based. I heard about it at a volunteer fair, and it sounded like a good way to kind of challenge myself and figure some things out about myself and my values, so that's what I stepped into. The bio that they printed for you mentions a lot of different things about you. First of all, are you Spanish speaking? I am. Why? It doesn't seem to me that Daugherty is completely Spanish name. That's true. Well, I mean, in middle school and high school languages are offered, of course, and I had a teacher early on who said Spanish is going to be really useful. I had a lot of Spanish speakers in this country, so that's what you should learn. So I started early, took some courses in college, and then living in the Chicago area just seemed like a very reasonable thing to keep working on, so I did. About how many hours a day does medical school take for you? Gosh, I guess I haven't calculated in a day or a week what it generally amounted to. I know I have some classmates who would say easily ten hours a day. They were doing something that school related. I was probably on the lower end of that. Is that just because you're a slacker? That's a good question. I know I am a slacker. There are definitely areas I could have applied myself more in academically. What I thought was sufficient to learn material and then in areas where I was especially interested, I would spend more time, but there were also other things I wanted to be doing with my time, and especially being a non-traditional student, I think. I'm pretty selfish of my time and like to be able to control it, so it wasn't always going over the modules or textbooks over and over again. Why don't you mention some of the things that you were doing with your time? You said you wanted to do other things with your time. What kind of things were you talking about? Well, some of them involved extracurriculars, kind of related to med school. The Medic Free Clinics is one of the things I really enjoyed spending time with. Some other community activities and organizations, like a soup kitchen, mentoring program, things like that, but also just things I enjoyed doing with my time, just spending time with family. I'm looking to have family in the area, going for runs, or just going to a coffee shop and reading something on med school. I'm trying to be a good student, but I'm also very much pulled by other interests and other values, I guess. You could say outside of the curriculum. It notes here that you spend some time working with the Salvation Army Clinic when they're short staffed, and Sundays and the Savory Sunday Soup Kitchen. This seems over and above a very busy schedule. Why are you committed to doing those things? Being part of Medic, I mean, I feel a strong obligation and connection to all of the clinics and helping out wherever there's some need, but also just living in the community and knowing there are all sorts of issues going on that are outside my own academic world or personal life. I think it's important just to stay tied in to the greater community and know that at any given time you're still a community member and still need to be engaged. It's what you owe to the people around you, and it's also how you learn and grow, so it's, I guess, a two-way street. I think I'm going to challenge you on something you said there, because you kept using the word "you." You'd feel this obligation, and I think you were referring to yourself as in "I feel this obligation." So why is it that Betsy Doherty feels this obligation, and it appears to me high above the average of what other people live in the same community with you feel? What is it about your background or your worldview that leads you to be so involved? A lot of what I did out of college, the first couple of years out of college, I spent time at Girls Hope, like Ed said, and community-based living. I think that had a strong influence, just being very intensely involved in a number of people's lives and having what they do impact me so intensely and continuously. So everybody's committed to becoming a good physician, and for me that means spending more time in the community as much as I can. And for others it means spending as much time with the books as possible now so that down the line that's going to be a strength they have to offer the people that they serve. Can you comment at all about how you see the world in terms of what's good, what's important, how you make that judgment call? Because certainly there's some people who would say, "Well, you know, if you really care about the world, what you should be doing is running a big corporation because that's how you generate riches which uplifts everybody from poverty." Well, right, I think each person has their own approach and their own strengths that contribute to what they ultimately do and how they contribute. I would say I value social justice, and that's been a big part of work and volunteering in the past, and I think in your question you'd ask something about, you know, what makes people interested in providing service to the poor or foreigners or some other categories. And I think just to remember that, well, they're not the poor, they're people who don't have resources for whatever reason right now, and often that's not their choice or their fault, or people who grew up in a different country who are now here because of whatever reason. It's unfamiliar, and they need help, so remembering that I, too, am a person who has a particular path that is not to my credit or anything like that. It's just what I happen to be born into, so in any given context, maybe I'm the one with the disadvantage in a given society or situation. So just trying to keep in mind that whatever person you're dealing with, they're a person first, and then they have all their aspects or attributes about them that may bring them to you because they're in some kind of need. Well, thanks, Betsy, for taking the time to interview with me, and I think it's a shining example to choose to spend your time as wisely as you have chosen to do in medical school. You know, let the moment overwhelm their sense of the broader picture, and I'm quite amazed that you find the richness of time to be devoted to all of the things of your life, and that's a great inspiration. So thank you for all the volunteer work that you continue to do. You've done, and for the inspiration you served to the rest of us to rightly order our lives. Well, thank you so much. I am definitely susceptible to being overwhelmed, so I don't want to give the impression that I'm not off in that. And among my classmates, I've been fortunate to have a lot of great examples and inspirations as well that help feed into this being involved in the community and giving back. So thanks to you and to all of them. We just finished speaking with Betsy Doherty, one of the five medical students we are visiting with today. They each received the 2008 McGovern-Tracy Scholars Award at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine for their exceptional community work and leadership, while working their way to the medical degree. They are all just at the end of their second year of med school, and they are an inspiring group of people. Onward, we go to talk to Joseph Hansen, the bio of the awards dinner handout says, "Joseph found his inspiration in the children's book, The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripp. As an undergrad, Joseph volunteered as a resident assistant, a sexual assault coordinator, and spent his spring breaks on service trips. Later, he spent a year in the AmeriCorps with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in Appalachia, fighting wildfires, expanding environmental education, and developing a recycling program. Joseph has also been a member of AIMS, advocacy and intervention for medical students, and an officer in the Emergency Medicine Interest Group. Finally, he has currently been serving as President of the Medic Council and has been able to witness a 20% increase in the number of patients served. Joseph Hansen joins us on the phone now from Madison, Wisconsin. Hey Joseph, I'm glad to catch you for this interview, especially with your boards coming up any moment now. Yeah, I'm ready to be done and have a little bit of vacation. Well, good luck on the test. I'm really glad that you could make the time, however, to join me for this Spirit in Action interview. I've already talked to a few of your classmates about the McGovern-Tracy Awards that you all received back a few weeks ago. How did it feel to receive that award? To be honest, it's a little strange. There's such a great group of students at Madison at the medical school who do really tremendous things that aren't always recognized. It would always feel a little bit strange to be singled out as someone who deserves an award when there are so many other deserving people. You've got a kind of an interesting history as regards your own service because you didn't go straight from college into medical school. Talk a little bit about the road that you took and how it led you to medical school. Oh, I think I'm still trying to figure that one out myself in terms of how it led to medical school, but after graduating from college, I was originally supposed to go into the Peace Corps, and that was something I had been interested in for quite a while, and that didn't quite pan out as I had thought it would. In lieu of that, I decided to do a year of AmeriCorps National Service, and it was more a natural resources management. I studied ecology as an undergrad and was always interested in being outside and playing in the woods really for that seemed like a good way to spend a year doing service. From there, I was in St. Louis for a couple years doing environmental education, prayer restoration, and conservation work for two years, and that was also a great experience, and then I went to Minneapolis and started a graduate program. When I was in Minneapolis, I started to question whether I really wanted to continue in ecology and figure out what other field I was interested in, so I started volunteering in an emergency room. Through that little bit of service and interactions with healthcare, I found that I really enjoyed the intersection of science and people that medicine allowed, so it seemed like a logical choice at that point to go back and finish my prereqs and go back to school. So, yeah, I found myself at 28th starting medical school. Here I am. You have that special connection to the outdoors and to animals, plants, all of that, and you've got connection to people as well. How do you see them as relating? I think that without appreciating that we are as much a part of the earth and all of it as animals are, it's really a lot of hubris to not realize that everything that we do impacts on the world, and we're bigger and I don't know if smarter might not be true, but ostensibly smarter and certainly more powerful, so I think it's really important that we continue to realize that everything we do has a certain impact on that. How that affects my decision to become a medicine, that's a different question altogether. Sometimes I wonder about what we're doing in medicine and really, by definition, is putting people first in terms of health and prolonging life and thereby taking a little bit more of a toll on the ecosystem. So, that's a question that I don't know that I have an answer to, but it's one that I really think I'll continue to struggle with and try to redefine what that means for me because I know that interaction with wilderness and with ecological systems is something that I will continue to do on a hobby level, for sure. You were precedent of medic for this past year, what did that entail for you and does this mean that you're the most powerful of all of the medical students? No, certainly not, definitely not the most powerful. The medic president's role really is to some of the day-to-day operational tasks are things like coordinating meetings and being the hub of information where people come to, because one of the challenges is with medics, six clinics serving, six really different places in medicine and they all meet at different times and have different volunteer needs. So, you are sort of the hub for information when people have questions about how can X be accomplished. It's really your role to help facilitate and make it easy for the clinic coordinators who are also student volunteers to really run their clinics in an efficient way and to provide some care to the patients as much as possible. Also to oversee the finances and work on ways to expand some of our fundraising abilities and just keep in mind the sustainability of the program because it's easy for the students who are frequently in clinic seeing patients to get conflicted in terms of the overall larger goal of medic in terms of continuing to be sustainable for the next 15 years plus or as long as this health care system is broken. You get to stand at that unenviable intersection and have to say no to certain tests or things that might not be possible just given the limitations that we have in terms of funding. In the bio that you had listed in the Tracing the Governed Scholars handout, it mentioned that you found your inspiration in the children's book, the very persistent gappers of FRIP. Well, was that story? I was just trying to figure out how that was your inspiration. Oh, well, that's a great book. It's a book about this little girl who lives by the sea and raises goats and she and her father and her goat herd are set upon by these gappers which are these little orange furballs from the sea. And it's a story about how they try to face this challenge alone and in the end are only able to overcome it because the community comes together. And I really like this story because it's not all pie in the sky. I mean, the whole story is that the community members sort of abandoned this girl. Her name is capable until all of a sudden they're set upon by the gappers and then they realize that it wasn't necessarily capable as fault or anything that she was doing. It was just a block of the draw in the capricious universe, so they all band together and come together to fight the gappers. And in the end, they all prevail and learn, I think, a lot about judgment and a lot about their book by the grace of the gappers go by. So that really, I think, is important for us, particularly as medical students to remember that we have really been blessed by so many things in terms of what we've gotten from our families and what we've gotten from the infrastructure of society that allowed us to get really excellent educations and the loans that I get from the state which are subsidized by taxpayers and all of this infrastructure that really is community that's allowing us to be where we are. So through, I think, that foundation, it's hard not to realize that you really owe something to the community. So by volunteering, hopefully, we're giving a little bit back. And also, I think you're also seeing that you're really only the flip of a coin or an accident or the loss of a job away from being in the same spot as the patients that were serving it. The free clinics. In some ways, it really is just luck. And I think continuing to realize that it's just tremendously important to met the best way to try to keep our luck as good as possible to work as a community. And I think that was one of the great things for me working in medic because I felt a little silly taking a lot of the credit for what medic accomplished and certainly for receiving the government Tracy Award because really without the medic council, nothing would have happened. So if 30 students who are working together, it was really an honor for me to serve that community as they were serving the larger Madison community. That's a pretty strong theological statement you included in there. But for the grace of the gappers, go, "I, do you have something that you've put together your own personal, religious or spiritual sense because I know you as a person who's very concerned about all species on the earth? How do you put that together in terms of deciding what's of value, what's important?" So I'm talking about really just spiritual roots and ideas of your own. I'm not looking for any creed or anything I'm looking for. How you conceptually put that all together. >> That's a big question and I don't know that I have a clean answer. >> In 25 words or less, come on. >> This will definitely be a rambling answer, but I think that I have come to the conclusion that life is really the only thing that we have by we, I mean animals and grass and all of these things. Since in the end is all that we have and cling to, it makes it sacred. So with that foundation, I guess I try to be appreciative for the impact that what I do has on the lives of other things, whether that means that they're ended because I have to eat some dinner or whether that means that I might have the ability to reduce some of the suffering that is in this other person's life. And I love them to cling a little bit less tightly to life because I think when people feel threatened, they really tend to cling really tightly and the fear of losing what they have really comes through. So I don't know that I've ever thought of it in terms of how it informs my relationship with medicine in particular or service, but it's hard when you see people who are suffering not to want to help them. And I think I've rambled a little bit away from the original focus as your question, but that's the best. It's really that I can put it together. I think that my, honestly, my spirituality is far more formed in the wilderness and in wild land. So I struggle a little bit when I try to apply it to humanity. And as far as I can go with that question. >> I thought it was a pretty good distance. >> Thanks, Joseph, for your service this past year as President of Medic. It's inspirational to see someone sample a bit of life here and there and then make a wise decision on how they want to help. I particularly am impressed by you because your care is, it's given to people, but it's also given to the natural world and keeping those both in view, I think is the right way to go and I'm just impressed with you from top to bottom. So thanks also for being my guest for today for Spirit in Action. >> Thank you very much, Mark. Thanks for the opportunity to talk a little bit about it. It's fun to reflect. >> That was Joseph Hansen, one of the 2008 McGovern-Tracy Award recipients of the UW Madison School of Medicine. I'm Mark Helpsmeet, host of Spirit in Action, which is a Northern Spirit radio production. Check out all of our shows via northernspiritradio.org. And please leave a comment when you visit. I've got one more medical student I was able to connect with. Next up is Kevin Thal. His bio for the awards event states, Kevin's view of medicine changed when he heard the story of Dwight Conkergood and how he helped improve the situation of many among people in a refugee camp called Bonvenai. Kevin later discovered that he was born in Bonvenai. He says that both his experience as a refugee and the gift of medical education have shaped his views on community service and his goals of developing into a thoughtful physician. While being involved in the Mung Education Network, he has worked on translating medical terminology into Mung as well as assisting illiterate elders by transforming handouts into audio video files for the CDC, the National Heart Health Association, and the National Cancer Association. Clearly, Kevin Thal is a worthy worker and a visible spirit in action. He joins us now on the phone. Kevin, welcome to Spirit in Action. Thank you Mark for having me in. It's a privilege to have you on because after all, you're one of those six special people amongst about 150 special people in your class who were awarded at the 2008 McGovern-Tracy Scholars Center. It must have felt like quite a privilege to be recognized on that day. Yes, Mark, absolutely. It was great to be recognized on the day when I got that email. I was kind of taken aback because every one of us at that medical school, all my colleagues are special in their unique ways. And so it's just an honor to be one of the few six that they were. And everybody does have their unique wonderfulness. And one of the uniquenesses that you have is that amongst the six, you are the only one I think who is Mung in that group. Are there other Mung people in your class for medical school this year? In my class, I believe I'm the only one. There are, I believe, two students in the class a year younger than us. And I believe, yeah, we're very few in the medical system as a whole and in medical school, at least in the university and medical school system. You're a first generation Mung in this country or something close to that. Tell me a little bit about the story about how you got here and where you found you were from and that connection. It was a pretty interesting story when I heard it. Yeah, interesting what I heard it also. I've been kind of piecing together the kind of story talking to my parents and my elders and also people actually from the medical school. I was born in Banvi Nai, Thailand, actually a refugee camp. For those of us who are familiar with the Vietnam War, the Mung were one of the backers of the Americans as they're trying to protect Southeast Asia from the communist enemy forces. At the end of that war, when America pulled out, we kind of had to leave our country also. And so our refuge place initially was Thailand. So my parents fled from Laos to Thailand into a refugee camp. Turns out that's where I was born. And I found out later from some of my instructors here at the university that there were actually community health agencies from the United States that had gone into Banvi Nai. And we're trying to set up health systems to help the Mung people to prevent disease and things like that. I heard this great story about a community health worker who went into the camp and initiated this kind of public health program to provide assistance to the Mung people, provide education to the Mung to kind of keep the disease levels down. Dwight Conker, who was his name, I was reading some of his paperwork. And he had arrived in 1983 and I discovered I was born in 1984. So, you know, probably because of some of his work. It's one of the lucky children that survived in there. There's a high infant mortality rate in the camps. It's only 60 to 70% of the children that survived in that camp. And so I'm very lucky to have come out from there immigrated to the United States at three years old in 1987. We arrived in Rhode Island thanks to the sponsorship of a lot of groups here, primarily Christian groups, but all the same sponsoring us and paying for our passage to the United States. And then from there moved to Wasser, Wisconsin. So, Kevin, did this background, this experience you had being a first generation and having survived through the refugee camps there, did that have any effect on your eventual choice of going to medical school? Yeah, I believe so. I was always amazed not when I was as young as I was in the refugee camps, but later when I came to the United States at the ability knowledge and skills of doctors that would present to our school class, like elementary class on certain days, and always very interested in their presentations. And kind of just looking on my past and where I've come from, always reminded of just the situations that we're in. My parents talked to me a lot about what they had to go through in the refugee camps and me experiencing a little bit of that. I remember big memories of what it was like to live in a refugee camp, but yeah, definitely it's been because of hearing about the disadvantages and things like that. I wanted to pursue a profession where I could kind of help and where I could learn skills and then be able to help others in need also because of the fact that without the great acts of kindness is bestowed upon my family. I don't think I'd be here. Yeah, definitely influenced me to choose the medical profession. You were one of six people recognized for the McGovern-Tracy Scholar Award. Your work included a fair amount of work with the Hmong community or extended communities. Talk a little bit about what you did. Right, so from my young age, I've always tried to incorporate volunteers into my life, and especially because we are so busy in medical school now, I felt now that it was more important than ever to strive to find time to volunteer and to do things extra. Because if I could find the volunteer time now, then hopefully later in my life, I'd be able to have time to volunteer and incorporate it into my lifestyle. But for the specific activities, it was more of a personal interest than more of a desire to volunteer in a community. I'd always been interested in the moment, the history of the Hmong, and trying to learn more about my past. And when I got the opportunity to actually work and volunteer for an organization called the Hmong Health Education Network, I kind of jumped at the opportunity. My past, basically, for the summer of my first year in medical school, kind of going on, even to some of the things I do today, are really to try to bring education to the Hmong community, health education. That is, and to try to help our society integrate into the western biomedical way of thinking about illness. Now, we have our own kind of unique way, spiritual way of thinking about illness, our own kind of unique religion that comes out of while it's the religion of animism. And there are certain aspects of that, that sit well with the western biomedical model of illness, and there are certain aspects that don't fit necessarily very well. So the first step really to try to cross this border between the two cultures is to try to find a vessel with which we can communicate with each other. And so in our Hmong language, we don't really have a lot of terminology to describe some of the things that the English language has for describing, just simple anatomy terms, things like the pancreas, things like the appendix. And so what I tried to do this summer, working with the organization, was to try to advise a little bit and edit some of their translations from English into Hmong to try to be more specific, and to try to create a better understanding of some of the terms that the doctors would be using. We ended up putting a lot of the translations online on a website, www.MungHealth.org. On there, if you go on to the website, you'll be able to print off pictures with English terminology of anatomy and also with the Hmong terminology of anatomy. What experience knowledge insights do you bring from the animist background into the medical philosophy that you're dealing with here? I think the knowledge and the experience I suppose that I bring into it is just access to the elders and to their opinions about health and issues relating to the health and healthiness. Some of the examples that I do kind of provide are certain spiritual things that people may think that bring about illness. And trying to just explain to them the Western Biomedical kind of idea about the illnesses that happen, the biological illnesses that happen, and the processes that go wrong in the body. When those ideas aren't really understood or accepted by the Muntation, you know, and I had experiences with working with trying to culturally translate some of the processes that are going wrong in the bodies and trying to relate more to the idea that, you know, spirits are causing the illness, but also trying to show the patient that perhaps the spirits that they know are things like bacteria or viruses that we know. And so perhaps we are thinking along the same lines, but maybe just using different words to describe the illnesses that we have. I am just beginning to really enter this world of cultural translation, but I'm beginning to understand that there is a middle ground that everyone can come to kind of sort of an agreement on. And there is a middle ground where, you know, ideas can be exchanged, but it definitely takes effort on both parts. And so that's kind of my part in the picture to try to be a lesson between the two cultures and to try to augment communication between the two cultures. Do you have a clear idea of where you want to go with your education? It sounds like you might be leaning in the direction of a special kind of medical outreach to other Mung people. Yeah, I think because my interest in the first year was working with the Mung population. It perhaps may kind of point me towards this population, but there's a part of me that wants to explore other avenues and medicine also. I have other interests in other communities. I'm really interested, actually, in the Native American community. I took a really interesting language course about the education, spiritual thinking and a Ghibli storytelling course. I really opened up my eyes to different populations. Well, it sounds like you've got some great direction ahead of you, so I wish you well on your boards coming up shortly. And I thank you for taking this time, especially in the midst of your busy study period, to share with us your spirit in action and how you're helping shape this world in a better way. So thank you very much, Kevin. Great, thank you very much more for having me here. That guest was Kevin Thao of UW Madison's School of Medicine, where he just finished his second year of medical school, in addition to a lot of good volunteer work. All in all, a great group of students, and more importantly, really great people. I'll mention that I was unable to connect with the six student awardee, no slight intended, because Nate Chin was as fine and worthy a recipient as the other five medical students. There's reason to have great hopes for the coming generation of medical doctors, given these great examples of the combination of scholarship and devotion to community, great examples of spirit in action. The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing.