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by Marc A. Hirsh M.D.

I'm sure that question must be on the minds of some in this south-central Pennsylvania community since I hired a patient advocate to do just that in my oncology practice. Actually, the answer to that question is really a very logical one, although how it came to be could not have been imagined in any mortal mind.

I was raised in a Jewish neighborhood in a suburb of New York City. In addition to my public school education, I attended Hebrew school two nights a week and Sabbath services in synagogue. My family observed the Jewish holidays and I was "Bar Mitzvah" at age 13. Most of my religious knowledge came from the Siddur prayer book--a collection of Hebrew prayers and writings based on the Old Testament, the Talmud and other Jewish sages. We rarely read from the Bible, but my parents instilled in me a strong sense of Jewish identity, culture and Zionism (the right of Jews to live in and control the land of Israel). I was versed in the lessons of the Holocaust and the history of anti-Semitism, but had no personal prayer life or relationship with God. I had no interest, whatsoever, in Christianity.

My father and mother encouraged me from an early age to become a physician and I willingly pursued that occupation. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University in 1973, I attended Albany Medical College and then did my residency in internal medicine at what was then known as Baltimore City Hospital. At that time in my life, my medical career was going well and I had accomplished everything I had set out to do. I felt no need for God or religion, including Judaism. In reality, I doubted God's existence and my life's philosophy could have been summed up as: "Eat, drink and be merry. Enjoy life to the fullest. And do your own thing."

In the summer of 1979, at age of 29, I met a lifeguard named Elizabeth at my apartment complex pool. I did not know she was a Christian, but I did notice a joy and peace in her life that I lacked. I also couldn't help but notice she often was reading a Bible. We developed a friendship and spent hours discussing and debating the reality of God and the significance of the Bible, both Old and New Covenants. Finally, she challenged me with these words: "If you pray and read the Bible with an open mind, God Himself will reveal the truth to you."

I took her up on the challenge...and just to prove her wrong, I started reading right from the first page with Genesis Chapter 1. But a strange thing happened as I read--I began to sense a Presence around me. The words on the pages began to restore meaning to my life. By the time I finished reading the Old Testament, I had decided God really did exist and I wanted to lead a Jewish observant lifestyle. I debated whether to read any further in the Bible because I knew that Jesus was for Christians, not for Jewish people. But when I read the Gospels, I was amazed! Jesus was a Jew, who came for the Jewish people. He lived a perfect life in regard to Torah (Jewish instruction) and he was our Example. He died for our sins. As I read the Gospel of John, I was convicted of the sinfulness of my lifestyle and knew what I had to do. I confessed my sins to God and asked Jesus to come into my life. I was at that moment a changed person, a new creation in the Messiah. God had spoken to me and revealed Himself just as Elizabeth had promised.

Shortly thereafter, I became a member of a Messianic Jewish congregation where I could worship Jesus as Messiah and still be Jewish. I married the lifeguard named Elizabeth (who truly had been used to save my life) and we moved to Big Island, Virginia, where I practiced general internal medicine as the only physician in a 20-mile area. At God's leading, I decided to leave that practice after seven years and become a specialist in oncology. After completing two years of training at Hershey Medical Center, I began private practice in July 1989 as the only oncologist in Hanover, Pa.

I tried to incorporate my faith and prayers into my medical practice and at times had shared the Gospel with patients. But there were so many hurts, fears, needs and questions in patients who were struggling with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy that I barely had time to scratch the surface.

Then in May 1990 I met a journalist named Lynn Eib, who interviewed me for an article on the local hospital's new cancer support group. Six weeks later Lynn was back in my office--this time as a patient. She was 36 and had colon cancer spread to the lymph nodes, requiring six months of chemotherapy. She had a strong Christian faith and in time she and her pastor husband became close friends with my wife and me. As a result of her cancer experience and a desire to minister to cancer patients, she started a Christian-based Cancer Prayer Support Group at her church. Over the next few years many of my patients benefited from this group. However, on a day-to-day basis in my cancer practice, we still were not meeting the intense emotional and spiritual needs.

I knew that God's call on Lynn's life was unmistakable. My wife and I felt that Lynn should work in the cancer practice on a daily basis and in the Spring of 1996 we offered her the job of Patient Advocate. She would meet and greet the patients as they entered the practice. She would relate her personal experience as one who had cancer, surgery and chemotherapy. She would be available to talk, pray, laugh and cry with patients and their families.

Patients' emotional and spiritual needs are being met. I have a greater awareness of what their needs are and how to address them as a physician. The entire nursing and secretarial staffs are working more closely to meet not only patients' physical needs, but emotional and spiritual needs, as well. Having a Patient Advocate makes so much sense that I wonder why I didn't do it years ago. I can't imagine my practice now without such a person.

So, that is why a Jewish doctor would hire a Christian to pray for his patients. I want every patient that comes through these doors to have the opportunity to be prayed for and with and, if they are willing, to hear the life-changing message of the Gospel. It makes so much sense, but I could never have designed all this to happen.

by Marc A. Hirsh M.D.

As an oncologist, I must deal with emotional and spiritual crises on a daily basis because the diagnosis of cancer usually evokes thoughts of death and dying. It causes fear of suffering, of losing control and of losing value as a person. It often makes patients ask questions such as: "What is the meaning of life?” “Why me?” ”How can I find the courage and strength to deal with this” and “Where can I find hope?”

As a Messianic Jewish believer I know that the Bible and a personal relationship with God are the only true answers to such weighty questions. While the needs of cancer patients and other seriously ill patients are manifold, the demands on a physician’s time also are overwhelming.

Many of our patients’ spiritual and emotional needs were not met in the first seven years of my oncology practice, so God put it on my heart in 1996 to hire Lynn Eib as a Patient Advocate. Our Patient Advocate is an employee whose job it is to be a friend to the patients and their caregivers--one who can pray with and for them; encourage and listen to them; phone and visit them; relate to and empathize with them; laugh and cry with them; hold their hand and hug them. The Patient Advocate is there on site when the patient needs spiritual support. The Patient Advocate is a person of faith, maturity, strength and sensitivity, who communicates patient and family needs to me and helps me meet those needs.

The benefits of this service to the patients and their caregivers are myriad, but I can honestly say that having a Patient Advocate saves me time, and therefore money, increases my spiritual impact on patients and enhances doctor-patient relationships. When a patient is upset emotionally, I feel a need to spend more time with that patient, but the patient’s concerns are often not really medically related. On a busy day in a busy practice, it becomes increasingly difficult to spend an extra 15 or 20 minutes with patients on non-medical issues. Walking away from a patient and leaving that person crying or devastated emotionally is difficult to do. But because I have a Patient Advocate, I have another option: I can offer to have the patient talk with Lynn. That’s usually what someone really wants anyway--someone to listen to them and feel their pain. When the Patient Advocate takes over the emotional/spiritual care, it frees me up to see the next person in the schedule.

I also believe that patient anxiety or other similar emotional/spiritual issues precipitate a lot of medical symptoms, and therefore phone calls to physicians. I think the number of phone calls from patients to me is less because they have a Patient Advocate with whom to discuss their struggles. Also patients are often afraid or hesitant to mention things to me--symptoms or emotional concerns-but they will confide in the Patient Advocate who then tells me so I better understand the patients’ needs. Sometimes there are problems or breakdowns in the doctor-patient relationship, of which I’m unaware, and Lynn brings them to my attention so I can address and try to rectify them. When the doctor-patient relationship is improved, the whole practice is improved.

Another huge benefit from having a Patient Advocate is it makes it much easier for me to pray with patients and to discuss spiritual matters. A lot of times I jump in right now and pray with some patients because Lynn already has talked to them and told me that they would really appreciate this kind of spiritual care and are even hoping for me to provide it. That saves me a lot of time from having to very carefully broach faith subjects because I don’t want to offend the patient or I don’t know what their expectations are.

And finally, having a Patient Advocate, I believe, can lessen physician burnout, which often is caused by the physician failing to find meaning in his/her work. Physicians who are in specialties where they often can’t cure the patient, especially can become discouraged and wonder what they’re really accomplishing. I know that statistics show that half my patients are going to die from cancer, but having a Patient Advocate in the office to offer spiritual and emotional healing to them adds a dimension to the practice that is really uplifting. Even if we haven’t medically been able to help some patients, I have the positive feeling of knowing they’ve been helped in other ways-often in eternal ways that will outlast any physical cure medicine could have given them.

The medical community, many of whom refer cancer patients to us for spiritual and emotional care, also has very well received our program of patient advocacy. These doctors do not necessarily share our spiritual beliefs, but they know their patients have “non-medical” concerns that need addressing and they welcome having someone to do it.

Just as we need our secretaries and nurses to help us deliver medical care, I believe we need patient advocates to help us deliver spiritual care to our patients. I feel that all believing physicians have the same mission: to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Each of us just has a different focus; mine happens to be cancer patients. It is my personal hope that this model of integrating prayer and faith into healthcare will be adopted by other physicians who are persons of faith and who are concerned about the emotional and spiritual health of their patients.

Article copyright 2002 by Lynn Eib, Marc Hirsh and CMDA.

Due to the volume of mail, Dr. Hirsh may not be able to make personal replies. Please send your questions, comments and/or suggestions to Dr. Hirsh who may discuss them in his monthly column.