PATIENTS TEACH STUDENTS
Legacy Teachers event honors patients who impact student experience
In the mind and heart of 92-year-old Claudine Humphrey, age is nothing but a number.
While that generational debate rages on, what’s set in stone is the bond Humphrey built with third-year Brody School of Medicine student Trevor Hunt. The two met months ago during Hunt’s rotations at Vidant Medical Center, and Humphrey left a lasting legacy that Hunt will remember throughout his medical career.
ECU medical student Seohyun Cho receives her Legacy Teachers pin from Dr. Susan Schmidt, associate dean for student affairs, before the Legacy Teachers Luncheon on Friday, April 5.
That’s why Hunt chose Humphrey as his Legacy Teacher to be honored on Friday, April 5, at the Rock Springs Center during the second annual Brody and Vidant Health Legacy Teachers Luncheon. The event was an opportunity for third-year medical students to pause and celebrate patients who taught them lessons they could not learn in the classroom or from a textbook. Twenty-one Brody students honored 23 patients as Legacy Teachers, whose paths they crossed during rotations in a variety of medical office and hospital settings.
When Hunt and Humphrey reunited, they talked like old friends and introduced family and faculty to each other before Humphrey presented Hunt with a gift box. The treasures inside included a tiny knife that had been in Humphrey’s family for generations; she said she wanted to pass it on to someone who had brought love into her life.
“I plan to go into surgery, so this is going to be on my desk for the rest of my career,” Hunt said, cradling the keepsake in his palm. “I can’t ever put into words how much this means to me.”
Meaningful Moments
Seohyun Cho’s eyes lit up when she spotted her Legacy Teacher, Quwaneka George, walk into the Rock Springs Center with her husband and son.
“She’s here!” Cho said, rushing over to hug George, who met her with open arms. They exchanged greetings and then admired George’s son, whose birth helped form their bond.
Cho found herself at George’s bedside during an OBGYN rotation as George labored during childbirth. The end of Cho’s shift came and went, and she held George’s hand, encouraging her and remembering everything she saw, heard and felt.
“I could see that she was relying on me,” Cho said.
Medical students, she said, can get burned out because they bury themselves in their studies, making it easy to forget why they chose to pursue medicine.
When George’s baby was born and cried out for the first time, she looked up and met Cho’s eyes.
“I thought, ‘This is why I’m here,’” Cho said. “I realized this is the kind of relationship I want to have with my patients. That was the point when I felt rewarded. I don’t ever want to forget that moment.”
Matthew Drake built a similar life-changing bond with his Legacy Teacher, Michael Moore. He said Moore’s constant positivity in the face of medical adversity humbled and inspired him.
“My Legacy Teacher really reminded me to always see the patient first and the medical condition second,” Drake said. “In a sea of chronic and acute medical conditions, he helped me to see how they intersected and affected a person, and also how one can live their life without being defined by them.”
No matter their story or reason for choosing a specific patient to call their Legacy Teacher, the students found reward in pausing amidst the rush and stress of medical school to remember why they chose to pursue medicine.
“The work of a physician, and maybe more so as a medical student, fills long hours with a quest to find the correct diagnosis and best treatment,” said Brody Dean Dr. Mark Stacy. “We sometimes forget that the contract between a doctor and patient is a sacred bond. The Legacy Teachers program allows a moment to stop. Thanking our patients for the gift of their trust is restorative—physically, emotionally and spiritually.”
Landmarks of the best sort
As the students led the patients to their tables to enjoy lunch, event organizers from Brody and Vidant Health welcomed them and reminded them of the importance of the doctor-patient relationship and all it stands for.
“It’s a great time to be here to celebrate our teachers,” said Stacy, reminiscing on the lasting legacy his former neurology patients have had on him. “It’s something I never want to get over.”
The attendees watched a video honoring this year’s celebration, and each Legacy Teacher’s name was called to stand alongside his or her student partner.
When she learned that she was a Legacy Teachers honoree, Humphrey had an inkling what she might have said that had a profound impact on Hunt. Humphrey had a storied 31-year career at the Pentagon before coming to Greenville “to buy a car but ended up buying a house instead,” and she has had one particular outlook on life she’s carried along the way.
“I think I know what it was I said to him,” she said. “It was something to do with ‘age is just a number.’ I have always lived my life thinking about that. It’s just so nice that these students pick up on things they can learn from their patients. This is such a wonderful honor.”
Hunt affirmed Humphrey’s guess on why she was chosen to be honored. He came upon Humphrey during a rotation in the emergency department and was taken aback by her feisty attitude and quick wit that wrapped around a wariness to receive heart tests and treatment. Hunt assumed that a 92-year-old would be the opposite of what he discovered her to be.
“Ms. Humphrey taught me that age is just a number, that stereotyping somebody based on it is stupid, and that sometimes those we least expect to teach us something will have wisdom far beyond that found in our textbooks,” he said. “With so much of our future patient population made up of this group, this lesson alone will impact my practice far more than a lesson on a single disease or treatment ever will. It wasn’t anything profound she did, it was just her being herself. Her sharp, spirited, quick-witted self.”
Hunt called his encounter with Humphrey “a landmark of the best sort,” adding that patients and physicians are equal partners in health care who work together to produce the best health outcomes for the patient.
Medical student Niki Winters observed this year’s event and looks forward to choosing her own Legacy Teacher next year.
“It was amazing to be able to honor the patients in that way and to change the way we view patients,” she said. “It is easy to see them as patients that have disease, rather than all that they can teach us due to their disease and their life story.”
Brody student Trevor Hunt admires gifts presented to him by his Legacy Teacher Claudine Humphrey before the Legacy Teachers Luncheon on Friday, April 5.