VANCOUVER (CCN) — Young Catholics discerning a career in medicine face not only long years of training, but also the challenge of navigating a health-care culture that often demands ideological conformity. On March 7, a panel of Catholic physicians hopes to help students face that reality with clarity, confidence, and faith.
A panel of Catholic medical professionals will meet at Holy Name Church in Vancouver to help young people considering medical careers better understand the beauty of medicine and answer their questions about navigating the necessary training and education.
The event is being moderated and organized by Vancouver family physician Dr. Christopher Ryan, who, with his wife, bioethicist Dr. Yuriko Ryan, is a parishioner at Corpus Christi in Vancouver.
He told The B.C. Catholic the event was inspired by post-Mass conversations with young people curious about working in medicine.
The enthusiasm of local health-care professionals to join the panel has impressed Ryan. He quickly had seven panellists and hopes to have more by the time of the event, representing nursing, pharmacy, and a range of medical specialties.
“I don’t think that in my lifetime my faith or beliefs were threatened as they are now,” he said. “I think that this is a time to stand up.”
What gives him hope is seeing young people “who are taking their lives and their vocations seriously, standing up for what’s right, and being brave.”
The goal of the event is to help even more young people do just that. While the landscape of health-care training has become more ideological, Ryan believes there are more opportunities than ever for those considering medicine, and they’re all open to practising Catholics. He hopes the panel will help students navigate an increasingly progressive interview process.
He says the public imagination has stagnated on the value of doctors’ personal values, especially if they are religious, and many question the need for Catholic health care or Catholics in medicine. He considers such thinking shortsighted, noting the value of a physician who shares their patient’s perspective on religion and spirituality.
He values having a Christian doctor with whom he has “shared goals, beliefs, respect and understanding.” A Catholic doctor offers the “extra benefits of faith and belief in God and his grace,” bringing consolation that another doctor might struggle to provide.
“We know that God loves us and that there is a life thereafter,” Ryan said. “Having that confidence and maturity is a really great thing to share with [your patient].”
Ryan recalled a conversation with his wife, the other Dr. Ryan, in which she emphasized the importance of Catholics accompanying others through life. He laughed at how accompaniment plays out in his own practice, calling himself “a dinosaur” who still makes regular house calls. In fact he was scheduled to visit a patient the next morning. “That’s my job. I can offer something to her.”
Encountering people in need is part of working in health care. “We tend to meet them frequently when there is some problem or even a crisis,” he said. “It’s a great gift to me to be able to help people.”
Those who come to the panel discussion will “have an opportunity to change the world and help people,” he said. “If the young people who have religious and spiritual beliefs grow up and bring those with them, the world that is currently in chaos will get better. The world that [my generation] left behind will become a better place.”
He offers a word of advice to young people looking at their career choices, whether in medicine or something else: “Say: ‘Here I am Lord, I come to do your will,’ [Ps 40:7–8], and listen to his answer.”
The panel takes place Saturday, March 7, after the 9 a.m. Mass.
