wfn.org | Physicians find fulfillment in ministry, not money

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

May 13, 2002  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-71BP{221}

NOTE: A photograph is available with this feature.

By Annette Bender*

ABINGDON, Va. (UMNS) - An old car rattles into the gravel parking lot at
Stone Soup Food Pantry. The driver of the car has oxygen tubes hanging
beneath his nose. He's shirtless and missing an arm. He leans out the window
to ask, "Are they still here?"

"They're here," the man is told, "but they're packing up to leave." It
becomes evident that the driver isn't here for medical care - his passenger
is. Severely overweight and complaining of shortness of breath, she begins
the laborious process of getting out of the car. "Come on in," the woman is
told. "The doctors will wait for you."

This is a typical afternoon in the life of Crossroads Medical Mission, a new
ministry based at State Street United Methodist Church in Bristol, Va., in
the Holston Annual (regional) Conference. Three days each week, the big van
and its team of three health care practitioners wait for patients in the
parking lots of food pantries, homeless shelters and churches. The mobile
clinic's services are free, offered to the needy in medically underserved
areas of southwest Virginia and east Tennessee.

Paul Derden, the physician who began the ministry in January along with
partners Tim Schwob and Rex Boggs, cites the statistics: "About 14 percent
of Virginia is under the federal poverty level - in southwest Virginia, it's
28.5 percent." He's rummaging through the van's storage cabinets for
medicine prescribed by another doctor that a patient can't afford to have
filled. "About 20 percent of the people in this part of the state are
uninsured. There is such a need out there, a true need."

Derden, age 46, and Schwob, 50, dreamed of giving up their lucrative
practices to begin a clinic for the needy in the early 1990s. They were
emergency-room colleagues who attended church together at State Street.
Disillusioned by today's money-driven health care industry, uplifted by
their own spiritual growth, the doctors toyed with the idea of a mobile
medical mission.
"So many physicians are unhappy, running through patients without any time
for them, working just to make the stockholders happy," Derden says. "It got
to the point where there was nothing else we wanted to do."

"We just realized that all the money in the world couldn't give us
fulfillment," Schwob adds.

When the doctors presented their dream in December 2000 to State Street's
pastors, the Rev. Fred Dearing and the Rev. Jane Taylor, the idea started to
take off.

"I thought it was one of the most wonderful things I have ever heard - truly
a way that we could carry the hand of God to lots of people who might not
enter our building," Taylor says. "But it was also overwhelming. How could
we start to get this from dream to reality?"

Church and district leaders helped the physicians form a board of directors
and began praying. The doctors applied for grants and gave presentations to
private companies as well as church groups.

Initially, the plan was to raise enough to buy a customized van and to go
out on location full time. The money for the 37-foot medical unit came
quickly: $250,000 from a local pharmaceutical company's benevolent fund.
Later, a local laboratory offered to perform all labs on uninsured patients
at no charge. State Street donated $25,000. Pleasant View United Methodist
Church, also in Abingdon, gave $2,000 through a special Easter offering.
Other local churches and business also contributed.

Finding ongoing funding to support full-time salaries, however, has been a
struggle. Although the mission was ready to launch last January, it's only
been a part-time venture. On the other days of the week, Derden and Schwob
must work part time in urgent-care centers. Rex Boggs, 49, a radiologist
friend recruited from Knoxville, Tenn., to serve as Crossroads' mission
director, supports himself through a part-time job at a local hospital. He's
living in an apartment owned by Derden until he can spring for his own
place.

Meanwhile, Schwob is considering moving his family to a smaller home. Derden
seems concerned about his son's upcoming move to college.

"A lot of the people we see have to make tough choices between buying food
or buying medicine," Derden says. "This project is important enough to us
that we're willing to make some sacrifices."

When the partners can secure adequate funding, they hope to provide medical
care on a full-time basis and include X-rays, immunizations and dental care.
They currently provide routine medical procedures such as wound care,
biopsies, referrals, and screening for diabetes and hypertension. 

On an average day, the team sees 20 patients at one of l0 sites regularly
visited in a seven-county area. The 10 hosting groups - which include First
Jonesville (Va.) Unitd Methodist Church, Hiltons Memorial (Va.) United
Methodist Church and First Mountain City (Tenn.) United Methodist Church -
agree to get the word out to the public and provide volunteer nurses to
check vitals.

"We've already had to turn down some requests to go to areas that are just
too far out of our reach," Boggs says, "and it just kills us."

"Maybe someday we'll have another mobile unit to meet those needs," Derden
says.

In the meantime, the team seems delighted to serve the public and not be
restricted by the bottom line. The doctors like being able to take time to
really listen to what ails the patient. It's no coincidence that this is
also an environment that lends itself to sharing the Gospel when the time
seems right.

"We do this all in the name of Christ," says Schwob, "and when people are
ill, that's an opportunity to evangelize. People don't understand that a lot
of the misery in their lives is a 'God hole' they're trying to fill with
something else. It's been a great blessing to spend time with these people
while they struggle to find a way in life."

# # #

*Bender is editor of The Call, the newspaper of the United Methodist
Church's Holston Annual Conference.

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United Methodist News Service
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