Physician blends science, theologyBy Ryan Teague
Beckwith RALEIGH — Since becoming Wake County's medical director in 1996, Dr. Peter Morris has seen teen pregnancy rates drop, infant mortality decline and access to health care improve. But a quiet doubt remains. Wake's overall health ranks well in North Carolina. But some counties in other states have better numbers, and even the most treatable diseases never go away completely. A few years ago, Morris decided the usual methods were not enough. "If I were in Boston, I would have gone back to get [another] degree in public health. If I were in California, I might have gotten a master's in marketing," he said. "But here in the Southeast, what I believe ultimately motivates us is our relationship to God, and I wanted to learn more about it." That is how Morris , 52, was led to enroll in Duke University's Divinity School as a part-time student. For the past five years, he has taken a course each semester, while still overseeing Wake County's nine community clinics during the day. His classmates, many of whom intend to become pastors or theologians, talk vividly about hearing God's voice call them to the ministry. But Morris , a soft-spoken pediatrician, does not plan to be ordained after he earns his master's in divinity in 2006. "I'm not trying to quit my day job," he said. Instead, he hopes to blend his education in ministering to a congregation with his work treating the ill. The goal is not to take religion into the clinic or medicine into the church, but rather to borrow methods of both to find a new way of helping the needy. As medical director, Morris oversees a staff of more than two dozen doctors, who provide pediatrics, obstetrics and, increasingly, mental health care to thousands of patients at county-run clinics. When he became a full-time administrator, he worried that he would lose touch with the day-to-day routines of medicine. To compensate, he works nights and weekends as an attending physician at WakeMed's inpatient unit, and he volunteers for daytime shifts during the holidays. "It is a constant reminder of who we take care of," he said. "I see our patients as they get ill and need the most intensive services. I hear them describe our programs and say how easy or hard it was to get help." Co-workers say the after-hours shifts are indicative of Morris ' approach to public health. Restlessly curious, he continually looks for ways to improve county services, such as personally calling an after-hours medical hotline to see how it is working. "Peter is extremely thoughtful," said Gibbie Harris, the county's community health director. "He does not provide answers. He typically asks questions. It's his style to inquire, get all the information and help people think through the issues rather than giving directives." Struggle with doubtAt times, Morris ' constant questions have led him to re-evaluate his personal life as well. Growing up in Massapequa Park on New York's Long Island, he was a devout Catholic, serving as an altar boy and attending Mass weekly. He went to Archbishop Molloy High School, a private Catholic school, and earned his bachelor's degree at Georgetown University, a Jesuit college. But in medical school at UNC-Chapel Hill, doubt began to creep in. Morris thought the Catholic Church was placing too much emphasis on maintaining tradition and not enough on following Scripture and serving the community. In the early 1990s, he became an Episcopalian, a denomination with similar rituals but a different hierarchy. Today, he attends St. Ambrose, a historically black church in Southeast Raleigh. As a student in divinity school, Morris still struggles with his faith. Though many of his classmates are secure in their beliefs, Morris constantly wonders whether he has taken the right path. "I feel like I'm a partially hard-of-hearing person in a noisy room and God is whispering," he said. "I know it's there, but if you ask me whether I heard it, I'm not sure that I can say I heard it correctly." But if Morris has struggled, he has also learned about the relationship between doubt and faith. Just as good doctors second-guess their own diagnoses, he argues, the most faithful believers may acknowledge their own doubts. "Faith should not be challenged by doubt," he said. "If you read the Psalms, they are full of people asking, 'Where is my God?' but concluding that God is indeed there. It's OK to question; it's OK to doubt. Through that doubt, your faith is strengthened." Bucking traditionOver the past decade, Morris also began to question some of the tenets of traditional medicine, in part because of the experience of his father. In 1990, James Morris was diagnosed with prostate cancer at age 74. The typical treatment would have been almost-immediate chemotherapy, a harsh regimen of pills designed to kill the cancerous cells that has side effects ranging from nausea to a depressed immune system. He took a different approach, postponing treatment while still getting regular checkups. He went years longer than doctors expected without any symptoms, finally undergoing chemotherapy for three years before his death in 2002. Peter Morris does not believe that all patients should do as his father did, but he thinks there is something to be learned. Perhaps, he says, there is more to medicine than simply attempting to cure disease or treat symptoms. Morris now thinks that religion can show an alternative, not just through its beliefs, but through its methods. "Physicians heal; pastors witness," he said. "It's very hard for me as a physician who is used to intervening to realize that the pastor's job is simply to witness. It's to witness your pain and your sorrow and remind you that you're part of a family and a community." In some cases, Morris says, the best thing a doctor can do for a patient may be simply to listen — and have faith. Reprinted with permission of The News & Observer. |