Faith-Full Physician: What it means to be a Christian Physician – Transcript

00:00So I have Dr. Joseph Aque with me for the Faithful Physician Series. With a series, I really want to focus on physicians who are excellent in what they do.

00:21They use evidence-based medicine but are also faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. And I think that the two can blend very well, in my opinion. But I would like to hear from Dr. Joseph Aque about his experiences. But before we start that, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you have done your training and what specialty you practice in.

00:46Well, first of all, thanks for having me on this segment. I think it's really important to kind of get that perspective out there. A little bit about me. So born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Both my friends had migrated there when they were younger.

01:02I did my schooling at the University of Toronto in St. George. I initially studied a physiology. And I did some post-back years, if you will, at the York University before attending medical school at Meharry Medical College. And then I did my residency at the University of Minnesota, just graduated last year in June.

01:25And I started my attending job as a urologist in Douglasville, Georgia with Wellstar. So as we're currently at, young baby attending and learning as I go along. You're a baby attending, but you're a senior in education.

01:42How many years has it been for you with all the training? Oh man. Well, if we got undergrad, so that's four plus two. And then we add med school, it's another four. And then we add residency at five. So 15 years of post-secondary education.

01:59So you're no baby-o. No baby-o. That's very true. Yes. So that's awesome. So okay, this is just a random question. Toronto versus Minnesota, which one's colder? Oh, so Minnesota is definitely colder.

02:15Okay, that's a good one. It is around the lake. So whatever they call it, 10,000 lakes. So you get the lake a bit cold. Toronto snows more. Minnesota can sometimes circulate as well, but definitely Minnesota is colder. I was just curious.

02:31All right, so the first question that I have for us is what does a Christian physician mean to you? Well, I think it's kind of as you alluded to, I mean, being a Christian is all encompassing.

02:48So it's always interesting when people say, what it's like to be a Christian physician or a Christian father or a Christian caregiver, ultimately at the core of all those is, what does it mean to be a Christian? And what does it mean to exemplify Christ and what you do and what you say and how you act?

03:04And I think that being a physician, you take the roles and responsibilities that are required of you as a physician and you fit those within the framework of Christianity and what you do anyway or what you strive to do. So being a Christian physician is being a Christian who happens to be a physician and making sure that the ideals and attitudes and minds that I bring to my faith is the same that I bring to the workplace.

03:32All right, that's a good answer. I totally agree with that. It's not mutually exclusive. And I think kind of the Christian hails over everything, right? And everything else just falls under it. But yeah, I totally agree.

03:50Okay, so another question I have for you is, as a Christian, do you feel that it's difficult to practice medicine and still believe in the power of God? Why or why not? So it's quite interesting because I remember when I was going to undergrad, for example, and the church uncles and the people they're like, oh, when you go there, be careful because they're gonna tell you all this stuff but it's gonna be at odds with your faith.

04:16And a lot of your educators and the classmates and the people you meet, they have the mindset that Christianity shouldn't be mixed with education, especially in the medical or biomedical realm. But I think that when your faith is, we do have a good base in terms of your faith, a lot of the things I learned in undergrad, it was just almost reinforcing, the same with medicine, reinforcing the majesty of God and the fact that he could create such a complex creature

04:46because it's crazy to me all the sicknesses and all the anatomy and the physiology and how things come to work together. So I think that for me, strengthening my faith in terms of just looking and having a deeper understanding and appreciation of what that creation man was.

05:06And I think another thing is that it can get difficult at times, especially when you're not on the physician side. So for example, as I may or may not have mentioned my mother passed away last year or last two years from COVID.

05:23And we were, that was one of the first times I was on the other side of things and that shook my faith a little bit because we prayed and you're going off evidence-based medicine at the time, this was pre-vaccine and everything. And she passed away and she didn't make it in.

05:39And situations like that can definitely shake your faith, especially when you have patients who have poor outcomes and those patients have gotten close so they can shake your faith. But it's not that it shakes my faith in Christ. It's just that you go through that period where why do things have to work out like this and why did this happen?

05:54But those are temporary. It kind of disforces you to go back and reflect to the basic principles that ultimately God is in control and how things come together for his good. So I think that in a nutshell, I definitely felt that my education, undergrad and in medical school kind of served to reinforce my faith.

06:19Of course, I also had the advantage of going to an HBCU and a lot of those are a great faith base. So it's not like they've been kind of shrub to give us that understanding that we're called, they always said we're called to the second greatest colleague right after ministry.

06:36And I think that it really kind of helped me put my medical education in perspective with my faith. I 100% agree with that. As an OBGYN, delivering babies is crazy.

06:51It's like, how did two small molecules come together and make this human who has a little heart and little kidneys, all the little organs that are working perfectly. And of course you have instances where it doesn't work perfectly.

07:07And those are sad cases, but to believe that, not just to believe to see it, to see it come to life, that some small molecule has made a human and the human has things that are working and functioning without it even saying or having to learn how to do it.

07:23It just happens on its own. So it's very interesting. And then watching how the parents are in awe, you know, just come out. So I agree, that's pretty cool. So with what you're saying, I think it really segues us right into our next question.

07:40You talking about being on the physician side and being on the patient side or having to deliver bad news to a patient or when you get close to a patient. So give us some examples of how you've been able to minister to your patients with giving them the science and giving them the recommendations based off of science but then also at the same time being a man of fate.

08:05How do you balance it to you? How do you minister to them? Yeah, I mean, as a urologist, a lot of my job is diagnosis and sharing news of prostate cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, things of that nature. And it happens, I would say, fairly often where I have to deliver such news and especially I deliver news kind of across the spectrum.

08:27Like I just told him 18-year-old last day that he has testicular cancer and he's gonna have to get an orchiectomy and then on the flip side, spoke with a 60-something-year-old who had bladder cancer and he's gonna need a cystectomy. So those things, you know, it's, I think that my faith definitely empowers my ability to share such news.

08:48And then of course, with patients, especially when you're working with a patient to have a longitudinal care because you need them from diagnosis to treatment and then post-operative care and surveillance. When I get to know them and especially as I get to kind of get insight into their belief system, I definitely always make it an attempt to appeal to that because ultimately I think that, you know, it's, I never liked the idea of just sharing bad news

09:17and telling you, this is that and this is it and then just going on that way because once again, being on the patient side of things, realize that at the moment they get that bad news, they may not hear anything else to say about the care and the therapy. But what we do here is you speaking life into the situation and saying, hey, you know what?

09:37I know I just gave you some bad news. So let's just pause for now. I can give you all this information, but how are you feeling? You know, how, where are you coming from? Where is your mind right now? And, you know, some of the patients, they can tell they're distraught over this situation, but once you appeal to their faith and you're able to minister to them and say, you know what?