A Doctor in the House: Seeing, Speaking, and Stitching Connections

About thirty years ago, I moved from Vancouver, BC, with my new husband, a southerner, to Atlanta, to pursue a PhD in women’s studies. The doctoral program at Emory University was new, one of the first of its kind, and I was to become one of the first graduates in the country in this interdisciplinary field.  I was more than a little proud, very exhilarated, completely terrified, and somewhat culture-shocked.  

That first year, we joined a big Presbyterian church in downtown Atlanta. How we ended up there, neither of us being Presbyterian, and having an over-abundance of churches to choose from, is a story for another day. Kind of formal and fancy, but without much by way of artistry or liturgy, somewhat wealthy and very white, it really wasn’t the best fit for either of us, but we stuck it out for about a year. Determined to really give it a go, I joined the women’s bible class, even though it met before the service (I am not a morning person) and, at 26, I was the youngest member by at least half a decade.

On my first week in the class, I was asked to introduce myself, and I remember thinking that I must have appeared terribly rare and exotic: so young, still with my Canadian accent, a feminist and an academic, among all these genteel, southern blue-haired ladies. I was delighted, then, when one of the women approached me afterwards with great excitement to tell me she had a great-niece in my program. Really, I said? There are only about 9 of us in the program, that’s amazing! Oh yes, you must know her, she said, and told me her name. Hmm, I puzzled, I don’t recognize that name. She must be in another program. Oh no, she insisted, I’m sure. I paused, and then repeated, quite slowly: I’m in the doctoral program in women’s studies. Yes, yes, she said excitedly, so is she! 

I was stumped. 

It took a little more back and forth before I discovered her niece was actually at Emory’s renowned medical school, studying gynecology. A doctorate in women’s studies, indeed! I don’t remember how well I might have done at trying to explain my field at that point, but I probably said something about interdisciplinary humanities and social scientific research by, about, and for women. Possibly, I added something semi-comprehensible about my focus on women’s literature and feminist theology. I like to think we were able to share a chuckle. This was but the first of many conversations, in many contexts, in which I had to try to explain what the heck I was studying and why it mattered. 

This story—and my recent experience with a family health crisis—remind me that I am grateful for doctors of all kinds, medical and philosophical, both. 

To earn a doctorate, to be a doctor of something, means devoting oneself to both acquiring and expanding knowledge for our mutual good. We need specialists, whether they focus on the interactions among a particular organ system or ecosystem, human behavior or social issue, cultural phenomenon or ethical concern. We need deep expertise to fill in the gaps, practical and intellectual, in our common knowledge. We need a fuller picture of reality and of humanity, and we need those with the skills and tools to help us navigate the dark and narrow places. 

We also really, really need those whose “specialty” is the ability to understand how these things fit together and interact. Those who can step back and see the big picture. Perceive and respond to the human impact of the intellectual or medical work being done. While not the stuff oft-celebrated as “genius,” such connective work is not less than. It is vital. 

Having spent much of the past 3 months tending to a seriously ill loved one, including days in an ICU and weeks in various hospital wards, I have seen more doctors, nurses, technicians, aids, and others at work than I can count. In this past week, we’ve interacted with at least 5 different doctors around treatment and care. It’s been fascinating - sometimes wondrous, sometimes infuriating - to see and hear them at work. The various and sometimes mixed messages can be baffling. The level of interpretation involved is intriguing. The degrees of bedside manner, widely varying. In general, it seems that, among doctors at least, the degree of medical specialization may be inversely related to the quality of personal skills and holistic attention. Not always, but often, the case.

So yes, in the face of immense pain and suffering, I am grateful for the technical expertise of the specialists who are prescribing surgeries, procedures, and medications, but I am at least as thankful for the integrative and human skills of the hospitalists, who work to ensure continuity of care from ER to hospital and across various specialists. I’m thankful for them, and for others on the team who take time to pause, listen, and understand the patient as an integrated system, including body, mind, and spirit, to see and hear them as a person, as a partner, and as part of a family and community that is crucial to their ultimate wellness. We are not simply repairable and replaceable bits and parts. We are human, social, and cosmic beings, whose healing and wholeness requires connection and integration. 

If my training, all those years ago, had been in medicine, I don’t think I would have become a gynecologist, despite my commitment to the wellbeing of women. Rather, I might have become something along the lines of a hospitalist. 

The focus on integration, in fact, feels closest to the work I have ultimately come to do as a doctor of philosophy. Seeing, speaking, and stitching connections, for a grander vision and experience of wholeness, has been my mission for the last 20 years and more. I’m grateful, then, for all the opportunities I’ve had to work with specialists of various kinds and to work across borders and boundaries within and beyond academia. In this new phase of my career, as I venture further into work with the nonprofit organization Human Energy—engaging with evolutionary biologists and anthropologists, neuroscientists, cosmologists, systems theorists, philosophers, and more—I carry this passion for connection, and for the still-evolving human at the heart of it all. This is fundamental to the optimism I share with our team and partners for the future. 

Given my actual sphere of responsibility and focus, then, perhaps my role is something like “noospherist.” That kind of has a ring to it. Maybe I’ll add it to my LinkedIn profile.