Brett Horsley, OB/GYN, Intermountain Healthcare
I graduated as a physician from a university whose mission statement includes the statement, “[You are] part of a distinguished heritage of humanistic health care based upon an integrated approach that includes the Body, Mind and Spirit of each patient. All three elements work in tandem … to promote wellness.”
This philosophy and focus has always made sense to me. Taking care of people is more than just “fixing” their body when it is not working right. It is a process of healing the mind, body and spirit.
I very much enjoyed my training and journey to become an OB/GYN, and when we arrived in Logan to start my practice 15 years ago, I was eager to apply the principles I had learned: To care for each patient with regards to their mind, body, and spirit, to focus on each individual patient as if they were my only patient and to treat them like I would treat my mom, wife or daughter.
These years in Logan have been absolutely wonderful! I love being a physician. Working for an organization like Intermountain Healthcare has been a true privilege. Most of all, I am so blessed to have amazing patients. They truly are my heroes.
In fact, as I look back over these 15 years, I realize that my mind, body and spirit have been healed as I have worked to heal others. I am not the same person I was before.
I have learned so much from patients who have struggled with disorders of the mind: depression, anorexia, feelings of inadequacy, marital struggles and more. Their battles have been valiant. Watching these women of courage and integrity never give up has been inspiring to me.
I have also learned how powerful, and yet how frail, the human body can be: strong enough to run marathons, to triumph over cancer and to bring life into the world, and yet sometimes the body stops living no matter how hard we try. Miscarriages occur, cancer sometimes wins and chronic disease and pain can be unrelenting and disabling.
Still, the human body is miraculously resilient and wants to live and be happy and healthy. In fact, with every baby’s first cry, the body declares with authority that it is still winning.
Finally, my spirit has been healed over and over by the kindness of my patients. I consider them my friends. They inspire me to be better in all aspects of my life. I marvel at the interactions that occur between women: mothers to daughters, friends to friends, nurses to patients and even women who do not know each other prior, but selflessly render needed comfort, love and time without expecting anything in return.
The body truly wants to be healed in all aspects; mind, body and spirit. True wellness occurs when all three are healthy and functioning properly. We all have the responsibility to help those around us achieve wellness. In doing so, we will find that in our journey to help others heal, we are healed.
