Benedictine College, where I work, has been working on something really big. Now, it looks like it’s about to happen.
The college is launching the new, proposed Benedictine College School of Osteopathic Medicine — a school to train doctors to be excellent physicians who also happen to be 100% committed to Catholic teachings on life and gender, and 100% committed to the poor and the marginalized.
With the hire of two impressive new deans, the proposed school is entering its final phases.
A fully pro-life medical school is needed now more than ever.
Kansas City-Kansas Archbishop Joseph Naumann and Bishop Joseph Conley of nearby Lincoln, Nebraska, have embraced Benedictine’s project, and it’s no wonder. The poor health of Americans has been in the news a lot lately — but not the poor health of American medical education.
“American medicine and American medical education are in need of serious reform,” papal biographer George Weigel wrote in First Things magazine.
The problem, he said, is that doctors have abandoned the Hippocratic Oath on issues including not just abortion and assisted suicide, but also sex-reassignment surgery, about which Weigel said, “If England’s National Health Service can figure this out by following the science, why can’t the American Academy of Pediatrics?”
What is needed, he said, is for Catholic educators to take up the challenge.
“Catholic medical reformers will need a lot of courage, as well as patience, tactical savvy, and impeccable scientific credentials,” to re-establish medical credibility, he said. “Well-catechized Catholic medical professionals are uniquely equipped to aid in that rediscovery.”
This is what the new school hopes to do.
I was waiting outside of the office of the college president, Stephen Minnis, when he walked in one morning sharing a thought that had been bugging him all night.
“Our Lady has given us so much success, I can’t stop thinking that it must be for something. There is something we are supposed to be doing.”
Dr. Kimberly Shankman, Dean of the College, came in shortly afterwards and said she had been nagged by the same thought.
So, they met with the college’s board of directors and convened a yearlong series of meetings in which the board, faculty, experts and industry leaders met to discuss what a Kansas college could do to “Transform Culture in America.”
“Health Care and Science” and bioethics emerged early as a priority and became one of the initiatives in the resulting plan.
With good reason. Medical schools can tell you how badly reform is needed.
The Catholic Medical Association last year asked Isabella Contolini to describe the trepidation she had about medical school.
“God was calling me to become a Catholic physician, but I was terrified of having to do it alone,” she said. “As a graduate of public school and a student at a very secular private university, I had no illusions about the challenges I would face as a Catholic in medical education and training.”
You can hear the same warning from leading neurosurgeon Dr. Paul Camarata, who has been in practice in Kansas City for 25 years and has held a number of leadership roles in organized neurosurgery.
“Beneath the ‘everyone is welcome’ platitudes, it is clear to me that many medical students of deep religious and moral background who disagree with the popular ethos are not, in fact, welcome,” he said. “They are in fact hiding, concealing their views for fear of reprisal.”
Camarata, who is a member of the Benedictine College board of directors, said the proposed School of Medicine “is desperately needed to listen to and cultivate those convictions.”
Now the dream of the school is becoming a reality.
Marla DePolo Golden, the new dean, comes from Dean roles at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine locations in Georgia.
She sees the new school as “a wonderful opportunity to rehumanize the practice of medicine,” and said, “Osteopathic medicine treats the whole person and is a great fit with the Catholic, Christ-centered approach at Benedictine College.”
The Associate Dean is Deacon Kevin Tulipana, who has been serving as president of City of Hope Phoenix, a Top 10 cancer center in the United States.
“I have spent my career living this mission, as a husband, father, physician and permanent deacon and am excited to be part of building a school where I and our students can authentically live faith and work to promote a complete culture of life within medicine,” he said.
President Minnis said that if all goes as planned, “we will be the most pro-life medical school in the country, emphasizing Christ-like medical care and committed to serving the underserved. But this won’t be easy. It takes a great deal of time and resources and preparation to do it right. But it is the right thing for the culture.”
