Medical Studies: Confirmations of God's Direction
Len: Welcome to A Willing Heart to Please the Fa ther! This is Len Lacroix, and I'm back again with Dr. Andrew Stenhouse. And we're talking today about the next segment of his life, following his call to be a doctor that he received. So, Andrew, I want to welcome you back to the program.
Dr. Stenhouse: Thank you, Len, I love being with you all.
Len: Yeah! It's great to have you! And I'm looking forward to our talk tonight. I want to start by picking it up right where we left off, where you had received that call to be a doctor, and after you had been already in college studying to be a cartographer in the geology school. Then you entered into the study of medicine.
So can you talk to us about that step that you took to change your course of study and go into the study of medicine?
Dr. Stenhouse: Right, Len. When you get a call from the Lord, it's something that takes over your whole life. And I had never had really anything like that before, but my whole life changed instantly. And I immediately went in on Monday after the Saturday when I received the call to be a doctor and heard the Lord’s voice.
And I found that when I went in there, it was very easy for me to change from geology to medicine, because I found that I had done a very good map for the geology people. But they tore it up and told me I did it too quickly! So that was another confirmation from the Lord. And so I told them that I would be resigning and moving immediately to the South Island, to Dunedin where the medical school is—in New Zealand, at that time. And so that was the change that came quickly, and I did everything that I needed to do to get down there and to get started.
And one of the interesting things that happened down there that was kind of a confirmation to me was there were two of us left with the professor to be partners, because we didn't know anybody else—he didn't know anybody else, and I didn't know anybody else. So anyway the lady who was in charge of the physics department said to the other man, "What is your name?”
And he said, “David Stenhouse.” And I said, “What?!”
And she said, “What is your name?” And I said, “Andrew Stenhouse.”
And here we were; the only two people with Stenhouse's name that we knew in New Zealand were right next to each other there, so that was another confirmation from the Lord.
Len: Yeah!
Dr. Stenhouse: And from then on, we went into medical school and, really, everything was stable from year to year, and it was getting easier and easier for me to do well in my studies, because the Lord was with me at every stage.
And, in addition to that, Len, I was very good about going to church on Sunday and not studying on Sunday. And I think the Lord honored that by what happens after all this.
Len: I would agree.
Dr. Stenhouse: So that was the next stage of my life, going through the next four years of medical school. And at the end of the fourth year, I was given a research year grant in experimental virology. I chose that because we had a new professor just come over from Cambridge who brought some cultures of different things with him—different plants and things. And we were able to start doing research on a project that he had in his mind. So that was the change that occurred at the end of the fourth year. And my fifth year was the research year, doing a research degree, which I did and got an extra degree from it—a Bachelor of Medical Science, which was a separate thing from the medical exams at the end of the sixth year.
Len: I see. Now as part of your fifth year, you went to the Cook Islands in the South Pacific—to an island called Rarotonga, where you conducted your required public-health investigation. And I just want to let our listeners know a little bit about that place. First of all, you want to picture a place where it's clear aqua-blue water, white-sand beaches, palm trees and coconut trees, huts and grass roofs, right? And it's hundreds of miles away from where you had been in New Zealand. So this is a little, tiny dot out in the South Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from New Zealand. Is that correct?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, that's correct. And, it was interesting—of course with my research knowledge that I had obtained in New Zealand—I was able to go with two professors (and be their go-to guy, I think) to do research with them in Rarotonga.
Len: I see.
Dr. Stenhouse: And so that was a very exciting time in my life. And when I went on a pier at the place I was to get on a ship, I couldn't see any ship there until I looked over the edge, and there was a tiny ship at the bottom of the pier. And I had to go down onto the ship, not up into it! And so, anyway, that was the beginning of my trip to Rarotonga
Len: That little ship had what kind of engine?
Dr. Stenhouse: It seemed almost like an outboard engine and went at about six knots or seven knots across the Pacific.
Len: Amazing!
Dr. Stenhouse: And we were in a mini typhoon, also, with huge waves coming on board the ship. But we managed to get from Auckland, New Zealand to Rarotonga.
Len: It’s amazing that you made it on that little thing!
Dr. Stenhouse: Ha-ha-ha!
Len: So then, how long did you spend in Rarotonga?
Dr. Stenhouse: I was there for four or five months.
Len: And you were doing other things like…
Dr. Stenhouse: I delivered babies, and I did some suturing. And I learned a lot of the island's habits. And one of the islands called Mangia was a different type of island; it was kind of wild. And I would be sewing up people's ears, because the men would come in with their ears chewed off by the ladies in Mangia. So it was quite interesting doing surgical repairs on men who had their ears nearly taken off.
Len: Yeah, I’ve heard of that before in the South Pacific islands.
Dr. Stenhouse: Then I did the deliveries, as well, in the hospital. And it helped the surgeon out. There was a surgeon there who was a very nice man, and I felt good about helping him.
I did some work on diphtheria, because there was no evidence of diphtheria in Rarotonga, which is unusual for children not to have it. And we found out that on the reefs there were diphtheria organisms, which they got resistance to when they would go swimming and rubbing against the reefs in Rarotonga. So that was one of the things that we found out there.
Len: Yeah. So, while you were there did you have to learn some of the language they spoke there?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, I learned to speak Rarotongan on a small scale, but enough to get by, talking to people. It was quite a different language than I'd ever seen in my life before.
Len: Interesting. Now, when it came time for you to finish your work there and leave—tell me about your departure from Rarotonga.
Dr. Stenhouse: Oh, the departure from Rarotonga was most interesting. The people that were there in the hospital put on a meal for us—for the two professors and myself. And we had three nurses assigned to each one of us. And what they would do is they would keep our orange juice filled on the table; and then the other one would make sure we had enough to eat; and the third one would fan us with a big, huge fan to keep us cool, because there was a lot of warm air coming in from the ocean, so.
Len: That was quite a sending-away party!
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes! It was really interesting!
Len: And then you returned from Rarotonga. And, at that point, when you returned, where did you return to?
Dr. Stenhouse: Well, I returned initially from Rarotonga back to Hamilton, because I was assigned to Hamilton as the place where I would be completing my fifth year as a medical student.1
Len: Ok.
Dr. Stenhouse: But it was very interesting getting to Hamilton, because I was assigned to this surgeon—it was quite interesting—the surgeon himself was a very interesting type of person. He had been in World War II during the bombing in London. So we got to know each other quite well.
But the interesting thing—and the thing that the Lord used to encourage me in what we were doing—was that the first patient we saw in the surgical ward was one that they couldn’t make a diagnosis on. I had seen such a case in Rarotonga—and you don't see it very often anywhere else—and that was a huge mass in one of the groins down between the abdominal wall and the upper leg. And there was a huge mass there, and they couldn't work out the diagnosis.
And I spoke to the guy in Rarotongan, which blew them away; and he answered me in Rarotongan. So I told the surgeon what was wrong with him, because I'd seen a case of this while I was in Rarotonga. And it was a diagnosis of a huge lymph node mass due to an organism that was floating around at that time.
And so anyway, I told him