07 A Hospital Intern

Chapter 7 A HOSPITAL INTERN To be a first class physician, one had better stick to his science and leave preaching to the parson. To accomplish the best results in the profession it is hardly wise to be too much of a saint. This is a world of give and take and in the keen commercial competition of the day, too much idealism means failure. Be straight and fair, but don’t do more than you are paid to do, and charge well for your services. Religion is good in its place, especially for women and children, but an excess of it is not good for a doctor. So say the worldly-wise. But did John Anderson’s absorbing interest in bringing in the Kingdom of God among men militate against his efficiency as a surgeon? Rather did it not enlarge his capacities and sympathies and make him the more skillful in his ministry to the sick? In his first year as an intern in the Good Samaritan Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, his unusual ability as a physician was manifested. In ten and a half months he gave two hundred and thirteen anesthetics and no one was lost on the operating table on account of the anesthetic. He assisted in eighty-one operations and operated thirty-seven times himself, and he averaged caring for thirty emergency cases a month. There were two exceptionally serious cases for whose recovery he was entirely responsible. One, an obstetrical case, in which the woman was poisoned, was turned over to him by her physician with the remark that he had done all he could for her and the case was hopeless, but if John wanted to try his hand he could do so. Perhaps it was because the family was very poor that the doctor gave her up. At any rate, that did not count with John. He worked steadily for seven hours that night without a rest before he was rewarded by a flicker of the eyelids which indicated returning consciousness. The woman was finally restored to her grateful husband. The other, also a septic case, this time a man, was brought back from the grave after his own physician had pronounced him beyond hope, by John’s devoted labors on his behalf. The man was discharged from the hospital some days thereafter, declaring that if it had not been for that young Dr. Anderson he would not have been alive that day. In a letter John describes one of his days in the hospital:

Saturday night I got up five times. On that night I had five emergencies before twelve o’clock and had to handle them by myself. I gave four anesthetics, one of them taking over an hour. I assisted in another operation. Had about twelve cases to come in besides the fifteen in the wards I had to look after. This is just a regular day. There are eighty or ninety more patients that I have to do laboratory work for, also go with their private physician as much as I can. His special care was the little children in the wards. One little baby, a foundling, he nicknamed "Queen." She was his pet. He made it a practice to go through the wards to wish each patient a cheery good morning and some told how they noticed this special attention. There was no smile just like Dr. Anderson’s, nor any one so good-natured. Of Thanksgiving day and Christmas John wrote in two letters home:

I was right busy Thanksgiving day, but I spent all the spare time in visiting the patients and seeing most every nurse and asking them what they had to be thankful for. I had some rich replies. Most of them were thankful they were living. Many did not know what to say, as possibly they had not thought about it. On the whole, most of them expressed their thanks in a selfish vein. One darky said that she was thankful she was living and would be more thankful if I would give her something to eat and let her sit up. It seemed to me that my whole thought was of the peace that I was thankful for; peace of mind, body and spirit in God’s leadership.

I have enjoyed this Christmas even if I did have to be away from you all. Thursday night I did crave to be with you all and have some of the good times I have had at home. I could not, so I went to work and got up a Christmas tree for the children here in the hospital. Some little presents were sent in for them and we had the tree and decorations here. I fixed up some electric lights to light the tree. I got up a Santa Claus rig and marked all the presents. Got up at five and dressed, got the tree with all the bundles in a sack at my side and went into the children’s ward. There were five in there. I went around and picked up three others and brought them in. There were several other children in the hospital, but they could not be moved. I gave out the presents and chatted with all of them. After this I had enough apples to give each patient in the wards who could eat one, one apiece. I visited all the patients in the hospital that morning and wished them a Merry Christmas. I carried Baby Queen with me and she enjoyed it as much as any of the others. She appeared to be a little afraid at first, but as soon as I picked her up she began to pick at my eyes. Queen will be six months old to-morrow and only weighs twelve pounds. She is very, very bright, can play peep-eye, put out her hands to come to you, and notices everything that goes on. All seemed to enjoy the occasion. I could hardly keep back the tears while fixing the tree in wishing that I was at home and a child again.

One of his patients wrote some verses which she gave to him shortly after this Christmas. The form’ is rather crude, but the appreciation is genuine.

Here’s to dear Dr. Anderson, So pure and undefiled:

Most every time you see him He’s carrying a foundling child.

Then he comes with a smile so bewitching. That he sets my nerves all twitching; And my feelings are most distressing, Until he is through with the surgical dressing.

Then he’s gone again in a hurry, Just as gentle and mild; For he hasn’t a single worry, Except for a foundling child.

He’s as nice as any brother.

He’s kind to every one:

Oh! Happy must be the mother That possesses such a son.

Oh Nurses, some of you catch him, Just catch him if you can, This wonderful piece of manhood. This Dr. Anderson man.

Just never mind his shyness, Just get his head in a twirl; For the man who loves the foundling Is the man for any girl. His mother wrote to him in her concern lest he wear himself out in his care for the sick. John replied:

You asked me if I did not get tired seeing and living with the sick. I do not get tired, but it is quite a strain. I have seen some cases that I have worked so hard over and then they die. When I get alone at some other work I cannot keep back the tears, although I never saw them before coming to the hospital. I had a darky die that I wanted to see get well so bad. This, irregular hours, and other strain is what sometimes wearies me.

Sometimes it is stated that a physician should cultivate a kind of steely indifference in order to be at his best professionally. Certainly from the standpoint of the patient it is desirable that the doctor have the bigness of heart and sympathy that John Anderson had for the suffering. The sources of his sympathy were deep in his religious life. He wrote in one letter:

Each day as I go about I see so much being done for the physical body. Effort is made here and there to save this or that person’s physical life. That is all well and good, but of what value is the physical life without the spiritual life being saved? My heart burns more and more each day for those who do not know Christ and His love. You cannot help but feel His love and strength if you will only let Him come into your life. And so as he went his rounds in the hospital the cure of souls was his great passion. There was nothing being done socially or religiously for the nurses and in the routine of their work to which they were bound, even their Sundays were rarely their own. There were influences, moreover, that tended to mar the best in their lives, and John saw the need for definite religious work on their behalf. He wanted to organize a vesper service in the hospital for them, but the superintendent objected. In a letter dated January 6, 1914, he tells of this effort:

Last Friday night a group of nurses got together for a prayer-meeting after much talk and they are going to keep this up each week. They have never had any religious services before to amount to anything. I got Miss H of the Student Volunteer Movement to speak to them a few weeks past and they were quite carried away with her. The Superintendent said "No," but I persisted until I got permission for her to speak. I am expecting to organize a mission study class soon among the nurses and would have done so earlier had it not been for the Superintendent.

John had a way of winning people’s hearts to higher and holier living by drawing them to himself through little kindly services in the every day rush of life. He used to lighten the work of the nurses now and then by carrying a tray of food to a patient or by cleaning up things which it lay in their duty to care for, and by other little unprofessional services. It is to such a person that one in trouble immediately turns, even though in health his religion was held in light esteem. This young intern was the first one called by Mrs. Green, the housekeeper of the hospital, when she met with a fatal accident in the hospital elevator. She was a woman of fifty and she had lived a careless life, gambling annually on the Kentucky horse races, getting drunk now and then, and so on. Two of her sons were professional gamblers. On her way upstairs one day, the electric current in the elevator went off half way between the second and third floors. She tried to climb out on to the second floor, but the power came on suddenly and she was caught and crushed against the upper floor. She was terribly mangled and knew that she did not have long to live. She sent for John to come and talk to her after everything possible had been done for her in the operating room. He came and with his New Testament in his hand led her to understand that there is mercy and pardon with God even to those who call on Him in their last extremity. And she was wonderfully converted. From the time of the accident she only lived twenty-eight hours, but she had them call all the servants who were in her charge to her room and she witnessed to them of the salvation which was hers. Her children came and she told them not to cry for her, that she was going to leave all pain and go to a land of joy. "The weather is fine here," she said, ’’but nothing to be compared with that above." She told her friends and the nurses around her bed that she wanted to meet every one above. John, writing of it, said:

It was the most beautiful and expressive death I have ever witnessed. I went to the funeral on Friday afternoon and the body was taken to Frankfort, thirty-five miles away, for burial. I did not have time to go, but John (her son) begged me so hard that I could not resist. Her death shook the whole hospital and the next few nights many of the patients could not sleep. Some of the lessons I have learned from this experience are: There is a Christ who is able to save; in all Americans there is a feeling of the reality of God in some form or other whether they acknowledge it or not for they have heard of Christ; I should refrain from judging or criticizing any one and do more to see what is deep in their lives. This has broadened my sympathy for people who do not live as I would like them to live. As in other places, John’s service for others was not confined to the institution with which he was connected. While in the hospital at Lexington he still continued his work with the Kentucky Volunteer Union and did the major part of the arranging for the annual conference in February at Georgetown College. He led a mission study class in the University of Kentucky. His comment in one of his letters about the University was that they had fourteen hundred students and not a single Volunteer for foreign missions. He was a regular attendant at church despite his heavy schedule of duties at the hospital. He could not get off in the morning he went at night. He made talks in the Young People’s Society. He was appointed chairman of an inter-church committee to get the foreigners of the city into English classes. One of his best friends in Lexington was a Greek who ran a shoeshine parlor on the main street of the city. John had been kind to this man’s wife when she was in the hospital and had helped them out in a situation where they had been dishonestly overcharged by a doctor in the city. The following year was spent in New York in the Post Graduate and Riverside Hospitals. He had been chosen by the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation as one of the first of the young doctors they would support in China, and they called him to New York for further preparation. A few extracts from his letters show that the great city had no power to lure him from the faithful performance of his duty as a follower of Christ:

Sunday I went to church and Sunday School. After dinner I came back thinking I would be in time for church here (service in hospital), but failed. We have only a formal service and I do not enjoy it at all, but I try to attend when it is possible as my influence might be of some value.

I am on duty to-day, but I have got some one to relieve me this afternoon for a few hours when I am going down town to hear some missionaries. I used to read my Bible as a duty and did not get much out of it. But now I find it a joy and pleasure. I went to prayer-meeting last night to hear Dr. Jowett. He was not as good as he has been sometimes, but possibly it was my fault. I have not been feeling extra good.

What fun is there in that kind of a dull church going existence? cries some young college man. Do you expect us to revert to the stupid days of the Puritans? On with the dance — there is no excitement in prayer meetings! Well, for John Anderson at least, there was no dullness in his existence, no somber asceticism or sanctimonious withdrawal from the pleasures of life. He entered heartily into the social good times of the hospital, the masquerade parties, the good cheer of dinners with other doctors. And just because he had his best fun in making other folks happy does not mean that he satisfied himself with a spurious brand of happiness. Perhaps he was nearer the secret of happiness than those who seek it like moths in the candle flame of their impulses and passions.

John’s conception of the value of student Christian conferences has already been indicated in these pages. His younger brother and sisters were in their first years of college life when he wrote to his father from New York:

I do not care to make my will at this time, but if I should die I request that the first money to be taken from my insurance be enough to send William and my younger sisters to one of the quadrennial Student Volunteer Conventions and enough money to send them to at least one of the Southern Student Conferences at Blue Ridge. Not anything in my life has helped me more than these two things. I think that William should go this summer by all means. I would hate to have him wait another year and then possibly not go, for he might not get a grasp as to what life is and what it means to live a life of service. There are many people who are just existing, not living, with no purpose, no desire to be anything. William is in a dangerous period of life, awfully dangerous. Are you all going to let him go on this way and not encourage him to choose the kind of life he is going to live? Do you want him to select his life work apart from God? After one of these conferences a fellow can do more plowing, cutting wood or anything else, for he is ashamed to let a little work conquer him. These conferences have enabled me to do far better work in drilling wells, enjoying better health, and have kept me out of a great deal of mischief and meanness. I had rather see William go to this conference or really want to go, than to be in Furman next year. If he goes and gets the right idea of life, he is going to be in Furman no matter what happens, whether you all assist him at all or not. If you educate a fool he will be a bigger fool, as the old proverb goes. If you educate a fellow without any ambition to be or do anything, the less desire he will have to be anybody. I would like to see all my younger sisters and my brother of great influence in their communities. They can be if they get the right conception of life. Possibly you think that I am crazy about these conferences and I am. They have been of untold value to me and I want to pass on the benefits to some one else, so that they too may be helped. Some professors would rather have their students be Daughters of the Confederacy than followers of Jesus Christ. With the coming of summer, the time for sailing to China drew very near. John had already received his appointment from the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board some months earlier. He was engaged to be married in June to Miss Minnie Middleton who had graduated from Meredith College in North Carolina, where she subsequently taught in the English department, and who had later graduated from the Baptist Woman’s Training School in Louisville. There was the rush of the winding up of affairs in America, the gathering of equipment for the voyage and the life in the great land across the seas.

John wrote to his father: For nearly five years I have been looking forward to going to this field. I have been trying to prepare myself for this work for nine years. Not any of you all can feel the joy in my life when I found that it was possible for me to begin this work. Then I have never felt so completely unable to do any work as I have in the past few days. God has opened the field, the way, and every opportunity for me, and now I am willing to let Him come into my life and take me and use me, completely surrendered to His will. Then what am I going to carry those Chinese? I will not tell you the questions I have asked myself, but I feel my weakness. I feel the need of your prayers as I never felt it before in my life. And in another letter he said:

It is one of the hardest things for me to get rid of that selfish spirit that makes me think of what people say about what I do, rather than what God might say. This is one of the reasons that I have wished to bury myself in the interior of China where no one may hear of the work that God can do through me.