February 10, 2025
By Roberty Motley, M.D.
February makes us wish for Springtime here in Philadelphia. Yet, this month brings us many celebrations: our Eagles won the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, and my favorite—there’s more daylight with each passing day!
For a number of years now, I have had the privilege of working with our area Catholic medical students. They are “growing up” in a vastly different health care environment, yet they are filled with hope. Why is that?
At a recent focus group with the students, they shared the things they are grateful for and the mentoring connections that are helping them to grow in faith while learning how to be caring, skillful, compassionate physicians. Here are a couple of things they shared, which is of value for the rest of us:
• Connection and Community: Within classes that range between 150 and 270, students establish important relationships with others who attend Mass at the same parish or through presentations offered by our St. John Neumann Guild, the Hippocratic Society, Collegium, and others. One student shared how grateful she was for our Guild’s commitment to helping students in the Philadelphia area “find” each other. In her case, her closest friends are those she met through CMA—and who share their faith and a common desire to integrate it with how they care for patients. I think about the people I have worked with professionally and those who quietly profess their faith in Jesus Christ. There is a “kinship” here, especially in those spaces where we can chat openly and honestly about being Catholic while being good clinicians.
• Discipleship and prayer: We can all speak to the sacrifices we made in the years between medical school and becoming an attending physician. Beyond knowledge and skill acquisition, we took the challenges to deliver high quality care consistently, be a person of integrity, faith and charity, and to offer compassion and empathy even with patients who are sometimes “hard to love.” We’ve learned virtue through discipline. Many of the students have committed to practicing virtues such as daily time for prayer, meditation or Scripture reading—sometimes on their own and sometimes in a small group. Experiences like the annual CMA “Boot Camp”, mentoring sessions with members of our Guild, and being with us for the annual St. Luke’s Mass have influenced them in positive ways. The students want to “give back” to members of our Guild through partnerships of prayer. The students would like to pray for individual member’s needs, intentions, and for protection against discouragement and burnout. They will be reaching out to Guild members for this purpose in the coming weeks. Please pray for them as well.
Dr. Robert Motley is the Guild President of St. John Neumann Guild in Philadelphia.
