Residency: Delivering Island Babies
Len: Welcome to A Willing Heart to Please the Fa ther. This is Len Lacroix, and I'm here tonight with my guest, Dr. Andrew Stenhouse. And we are here for another chapter of his life. And, Andrew, I want to welcome you back to the program.
Dr. Stenhouse: Thank you, Len, I appreciate it. And I enjoy these sessions, because they, I hope, glorify the Lord and don't in any way glorify me, because without the Lord I would have been down a hole.
Len: Yes. Well they have. And I think it's going to bless a lot of people.
And we finished the last chapter talking about your medical studies and your return from Rarotonga to Hamilton, which is on the North Island of New Zealand.
And, tonight, we're going to pick it up right there, where we ended the last one, and we're going to talk about your residency.
Dr. Stenhouse: Well, I'd like to first make a few clarifications.
After a person graduates from medical school, you get a cap and a gown, and you go through a formal session of being capped as a doctor—an M.D.
And so, the first two years after that are called a “doctor’s residency”. We are doctors, but we are in a resident for two years—the first two years after graduation. And then, the third and fourth years after graduation, we are in a registrar position, which is a supervisory plus medical treatments assessment, where we take care, not only of patients, but we supervise the residents who are on the team that we are working with.
Len: Right.
Dr. Stenhouse: So I hope that that may clarify, because it is difficult to understand.
Len: Yeah, so thank you for clarifying that. So, when we talk about your residency, at this point, you had actually already done your first year of residency in Hamilton, after you finished that several months in Rarotonga, where you did a special assignment. Now you were moving to where, for your second-year residency?
Dr. Stenhouse: To Murupara.
Len: Ok.
Dr. Stenhouse: Well, in the second-year residency, I felt called, because they didn't have a doctor associated with it; they have a medical hospital there strictly for obstetrics.
I needed to go there; I felt the Lord was calling me there to help them out, with regard to having a doctor and, at the same time, fulfilling my second year as a resident.
Len: So was this like you had a choice, where you could have taken the assignment or chosen not to go to Murupara?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, I had a choice whether to stay in Hamilton or to go to Murupara…
Len: Ok. So you accepted that.
Dr. Stenhouse: …for the second year of being a resident.
Len: Ok.
Dr. Stenhouse: And there was one of us that went, and that was me. And so, anyway, it was a very interesting year. And a lot of things occurred during that year that were very interesting.
For example, I was the dentist in the area, as well. Although I’d never taken a tooth out, I had to take care of bad teeth. And they did, indeed, in spite of my not knowing it, have one set of pliers for extracting teeth. Because that’s what they are—they’re sort of super-pliers. But this one was found in the doctor's office there and apparently came from Germany; it was left there by a German missionary. And so I was glad to have that!
Len: Yeah! What era were they from?
Dr. Stenhouse: They were from the late 1800s—this one pair of pliers.
Len: Wow! One old pair of pliers, from a missionary, from way back in the 1800s.
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.
Len: And you were using that to pull teeth out. Now that wasn’t even something that was part of your medical training; so you kind of got thrown into that, right?
Dr. Stenhouse: I had never taken a tooth out, except my own. No. That was one of the things that was interesting.
The other thing was being by myself, delivering babies; the nearest obstetrical hospital is fifty-five miles away.
And most of the patients were Maoris, because they were the group of people that lived out in the bush in Murupara.
Len: Ok. I see.
Dr. Stenhouse: And I always had people in the delivery room that I had never seen before, come in, ready to deliver. So this could happen day or night.
Len: Wow! Think about that! That's pretty serious, because, normally, a doctor would have been seeing an obstetrics patient during her pregnancy, but these people would just show up when they're ready to deliver. So you had no history on them; you don't know anything about the risk factors involved or anything like that, or even the patient. They're just presenting to you—they need you to deliver their baby.
Dr. Stenhouse: That's correct, yes.
Len: Were they coming from places that were farther away, or mainly right there?
Dr. Stenhouse: They were from the area. It was called a bush area in medical terminology; and they were really from within, say, twenty miles of the hospital.
Len: Ok.
Dr. Stenhouse: So anyway—thank you, Lord, for taking care of me during that time, because He was the one that did all of the work. I listened, and I did what I heard to do. And one of the easiest ways I found to get a tooth out that’s bad is to find the thinnest side of the bone and to make a little crack, or fracture, in that inside part of the jaw; and the tooth falls out when you try and help it. Otherwise, you're in quite a mess.
Len: Yeah.
Dr. Stenhouse: So, the Lord showed me to do that.
Len: Wow! But with the deliveries, did you have much training in that type of thing? Because you weren’t an obstetrician—or an OBGYN. So did you really have very much training in delivering babies?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, we all had to do about ten to twelve deliveries on our own—supervised, of course; and we did that as part of our training. But if there had been any complications that were severe, I would not have seen them before, you know.
Len: Did you have any that got complicated?
Dr. Stenhouse: Oh, yes. I had some complicated patients. But the Lord showed me what to do and guided me; and we got through everything. I didn't lose any babies.
Len: Wow! Praise God!
Dr. Stenhouse: And the mothers were pleased. And I gave them lots of anesthetic, as I did with the dentist part. They called me "the painless doctor." So, anyway, I gave the ladies the local anesthetic, and we got every baby out healthy.
Len: Wow!
Dr. Stenhouse: And I’ll give you a story about one of the babies that came out—a beautiful child—and the mother started to cry. And I said, “What's wrong, dear?”
And she said, “Oh, he's done it again!” And I said, “What did he do again?”
And she said, “He's given my baby away.”
Len: What?!
Dr. Stenhouse: And the husband would be betting on his child.
Len: Oh, no.
Dr. Stenhouse: Because the hospitals and government gave them about seven dollars or ten dollars a month for every child they have. And he was using the future child's money for betting.
Len: Wow!
Dr. Stenhouse: So, she was crying because of that—I mean, he cried because of it, too. But I didn’t say anything to him because they were bigger than me.
Len: Yeah. So when you did these deliveries, did they have at least a nurse there to assist you?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, they had a nurse, a nurse who specialized in it. And they were very helpful, and they knew what to do. I’d tell them what the next thing to do was, and they would do it. And they were very helpful.
Len: Yeah. So, you did these deliveries, and by the grace of God you didn't lose a single baby?
Dr. Stenhouse: No, no.
Len: That's amazing! Did you ever have a patient name the child after you?
Dr. Stenhouse: Oh yes! They would say, “Doctor, can we call this patient 'Andrew'?”
And I would say, “Because you asked, you can.”
Len: So now, if you go back to Murupara today, there are probably these babies from that era—a bunch of Andrews living around there.
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, there will be a bunch of Andrews running around over there.
Len: So, any other experiences that you want to tell us about in Murupara?
Dr. Stenhouse: Not really. It was a most exciting time for me because I also had to do surgical work—sewing up everything. And then, I was also the doctor for another little town called Kaingaroa and would have a practice there. Every week I’d have to drive up there in my car. And the only other interesting thing was that great lorries filled with trees would follow me down the road and try and run me off the road at night when I’d go home.
Len: Wow!
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, they would follow me at great speeds down the road.
Len: Wow! These big trucks carrying trees—like logging trucks, right?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, logging trucks. And I’d ask the Lord, “Lord, you got me here. Get me out of this.”
Len: And He was faithful to protect you in spite of all those dangers. So, when you finished your time there—your residency in Murupara, out in the bush—then, where did you return to afterwards?
Dr. Stenhouse: Murupara in the bush was my second year of residency. And the next thing we had was my first year of registrar in Dunedin. After you graduate from medical school, you have two years of residency, and then two years as a registrar.
Len: Okay.
Dr. Stenhouse: I got called back there. They asked if I would come there, and I said, “Yes, I'd love to come back to Dunedin." So, that's sort of another chapter in my life—the beginning of the registrar period of time, in which I completed both years in Dunedin.
Len: Yeah. So, the place you went to in Dunedin was a teaching hospital. Correct?
Dr. Stenhouse: Correct. Yes.
Len: What position did you get assigned to there?
Dr.