Dual career doctors: doing it all!

MEDICINE is a profession that requires 24-hour dedication and an unyielding commitment. But an increasing number of multitalented doctors, men and women, are embarking upon dual career paths. Some are pastors, some are CEOs, some are community activists and motivational speakers, and one is the chief of a village in West Africa.

One of the best known of the dual career doctors is Bishop Horace E. Smith, M.D., director of the Children's Sickle Cell and Thalassemia program at Chicago's prestigious Children's Memorial Hospital and presiding bishop of a 53-church diocese.

Dr. Smith, who is also pastor of Apostolic Faith Church, conducts two services on Sunday, Bible study on Wednesday and remote access services when he travels internationally. But despite the demands of his schedule, he maintains his commitment to his patients and his ministry. "The most important thing is balance and realizing that you are dealing with people and their lives."

Dr. Smith says there is a strong correlation between the ministry and medicine. But, he says, if he had to choose one profession, the choice would be clear. "Both ministry and medicine are fulfilling, each impacting people and fulfilling a great need in a person's life. But, I am a pastor first and foremost. The Lord allows me to do medicine."

Raised on the South Side of Chicago, the future Dr. Smith was only 10 years old when his mother died. "In the short-term, losing my mother was a devastating experience, but in the long-term, it taught me compassion. I learned that life is very precious and very fragile, so we have to be compassionate all the time," says the life-saving physician. "There is no doubt in my mind that medicine is indeed a calling--it is not a job."

Dr. Smith credits his ability to balance both worlds to his wife, Susan, who is a clinical pharmacist and fellow staffer at Children's Memorial Hospital. With the support of his wife, who is an administrator of his church, and family, the bishop-physician is using his medical background to build his ministry. "Medicine requires rigorous training and teaches you how to organize people, how to analyze people, how to assess people and how to be compassionate. My training in medicine helps me to organize my church."

Not only Black male doctors, but Black female doctors are pioneering as dual career practitioners. Dr. Willarda Edwards is managing partner of her private medical practice, chairman of the board of the National Medical Association and national health director for the NAACP. "I work full-time five days per week at the NAACP and two or three days per week at my medical office," says Dr. Edwards, who makes the 20-minute commute between her medical office and the NAACP office.

Dr. Edwards, who is also a national speaker and lecturer, has been traveling every weekend since the beginning of the year in conjunction with her roles with the NAACP, the National Medical Association and the American Medical Association. "When it comes down to increasing the number of African-American physicians, or trying to decrease health care disparity among our patients ... if it takes going on Capitol Hill, talking to the governor or to our legislators, I'm going to try to get that done. My job is to facilitate people who have a message and get that message to the audience that needs to hear it. I am an advocate for change," says Dr. Edwards, who developed a passion for medicine as a child.

"When I was little, my mother bought a doctor's bag for my two older brothers and she bought a nurse's bag for me," she recalls. "The three of us fought over it until I finally got the doctor's bag."

Now the manager of her own medical office, Dr. Edwards says servicing her patients and mentoring to medical students are her greatest fulfillment. "I enjoy the contact I have with my patients because it gives me continued insight into what medical professionals are facing on a day-to-day basis. So when I speak about those things as the NAACP national health director, I know what my patients are going through."

Another dual career doctor, Dr. Therman Evans--physician, pastor, CEO and motivational speaker--travels the world, including an annual trip to the West African village of Senya Beraku, where he is chief, sharing his message of wellness and prevention. Working from his home office, Dr. Evans coordinates a demanding lecture and tour schedule that includes national, international and local venues and up to five states per week. Although 55 percent of his time is devoted to his pastoral duties--two services on Sunday and Bible study on Thursday--he rises before dawn each day. "If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can help somebody with a word or a song, then my living will not be vain," he says. "We're blessed to be a blessing"

Dr. Evans, pastor of Morning Star Community Tabernacle Church in Linden, NJ, and CEO of WholeLife Associates in Philadelphia, a medical management-consulting firm where his wife, Bernetta, is vice president, believes that medicine and ministry are interchangeable. "I see one as an extension of the other. They are both about healing, and the root of all healing is spiritual. You may use different utensils, but the objective is the same."