John Shin, MD
When God Leads: My Journey into Medical School
Having sworn off medical school after graduating from college, I decided to go into law and was working as a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when I got the news: “Your father has brain cancer. It’s a stage III anaplastic astrocytoma.” It was June 20, 2008 when we received the pathology results from my father’s craniotomy, and I became numb with disbelief. How could my father have brain cancer? No one in my family has ever had any kind of cancer. My life came to a halt.
Over the next five months, I took a leave of absence from work and practically lived inside the hospital as my mother and I became my father’s primary caretakers. During that time, many of my encounters with physicians confirmed for me that I had made the right choice in shunning medicine. Their daily, impersonal, five-minute interviews had me convinced that a doctor’s primary goal was to leave the patient’s room as soon as possible. I wondered if they ever really listened to us, or if they understood just how much their orders for the day could affect our lives for the next twenty-four hours.
Everything changed, however, when a physician who I can only describe as a true Christian stepped into our lives. In addition to managing my father’s medical problems, he gave my father spiritual guidance and helped him work through difficult issues such as depression and trusting in God. After every visit, this doctor offered to pray with us and would kneel by my father’s bedside. His heartfelt prayers often brought tears to my father’s eyes, and although cancer was still ravaging his body, I could sense that a far more important type of healing was taking place.
In September, my father made the decision to re-dedicate his life to God, and he wanted to commemorate the event by getting re-baptized. Unfortunately, on the day before his baptism, he suffered a grand mal seizure that left him in a near-comatose state. However, during the brief moments when my father was responsive, he let us know that his faith was in Christ. When my father passed away on October 18, 2008, I found myself thanking God despite my grief because I knew that He had healed my father on a much deeper level than I had asked.
After going through this experience, I was inspired to look at the practice of medicine again with new eyes. For the first time, I understood the impact a Christian physician could have on a patient’s life. Looking back on my father’s story, it became clear to me that a physician’s daily interaction with patients could have eternal consequences. I began to read The Ministry of Healing by Ellen White, and I felt in my heart that God was calling me into medicine.
I was worried about the medical school application process because I was three years out of college, but I felt convicted that it was the right decision, and I ended up applying to 24 different schools. I had taken the MCAT back in 2006, and to my relief all the schools I applied to still accepted my score. That is, all but one: Loma Linda University. At first, I took this as a sign that Loma Linda was not an option for me, but as time went on I felt impressed that I would not be giving God every opportunity to lead me if I did not apply to the school that had at one point used The Ministry of Healing as its textbook.
In June 2009, I decided to quit my job at the Patent Office to study full-time and prepare for my MCAT. I was nervous because I knew that if I scored lower this time, it would jeopardize my chances of getting into any medical school. However, as I studied, I began getting higher marks on my practice exams than what I had gotten in 2006, and this gave me the assurance that God was with me. I went into my exam with a peace of mind that I had never experienced before on a test. When I received my score several weeks later, I was shocked to discover that it was significantly lower than my 2006 test score. As a result, every school I applied to rejected me. Every school, that is, except Loma Linda.
It is interesting how God leads. Before my second MCAT, I was in the running for many schools, and I prayed for God to narrow down the choices for me. But after retaking the MCAT on what I believe was His prompting, all my hopes were riding on Loma Linda. Needless to say, I was anxious to get an interview. However, to further complicate the situation, I had submitted my application late because I had to wait for my new MCAT scores, and interviews are granted on a first-come basis. When I called Loma Linda to ask when I could expect to be invited for an interview (assuming they did decide to interview me), I was told it would probably be sometime in January. It was October 2009 at that point, and I knew that by January most of the decisions for admission would have already been made. It was disappointing news, but I prayed for the Lord’s will to be done, and I resolved to not worry about it. Two weeks later, to my great surprise, I received a letter from Loma Linda inviting me to interview.
When I showed up for my interview in November, God let me know in several ways that He had orchestrated the event. First, I was amazed to discover that it was the first interview day of the season when only the top applicants were invited. Second, the interview itself went extremely well. That is, until the very end. The physician interviewing me decided to close by asking about my father’s treatment plan while he was ill. I explained that we only used natural methods because we believed radiation therapy would have done more harm than good, and it would not have changed the prognosis. It was apparent that he did not like my answer. He questioned me at length about my philosophy of medicine and treatment methods. When the interview was over I had mixed feelings, but I reminded myself that the results were in God’s hands.
While I waited to hear back from Loma Linda, I enrolled in the Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism (AFCOE) four-month training program. During my first month there, I received a call from Loma Linda asking me to come in for a second round of interviews. I was surprised because I had never heard of anyone interviewing twice at a medical school before. I quickly scheduled my interview and flew out to Loma Linda as my AFCOE classmates prayed for me. When I arrived, LLU had me scheduled to meet with two physicians back to back. It became obvious early on why I had been asked to interview a second time. The majority of the questions were directed to my philosophy of medicine. For almost three hours I was asked about my views regarding the role of natural remedies and lifestyle changes vs. traditional medicine. I prayed for the wisdom to answer with skill and tact while standing up for the truths I had learned through my father’s experience and from reading The Ministry of Healing. During that interview I made a conscious decision, if I was rejected for upholding the principles that Loma Linda University was founded upon, I was not meant to be a student there.
Weeks went by after that second interview, and I did not hear back from Loma Linda. Although I had told God I would accept any outcome as His will for me, I knew in my heart I wanted to go into medicine and I began to fear God would lead me in a different way. Then on February 18, 2010, an event occurred that changed my thinking forever. We had our first day of outreach at AFCOE during which our class of fifty students descended on the streets of Sacramento and went door-to-door asking for Bible studies. We were all very nervous, but what we lacked in ability we made up for in prayer, and in just three hours we obtained 164 Bible studies. That night, we stayed up late sharing testimonies and singing praises to God because we were all so deeply moved by the unmistakable evidence of His faithfulness in our lives.
The next morning, I woke up and spent a long time in prayer. I asked God to forgive me for wanting medicine despite my claim to desire only His will for my life. I realized that as long as God used me to touch lives for Him like He had the previous day, it did not matter what I did for a profession. For the first time, I truly turned over to God my desire to have a career in medicine. Instead, I simply prayed that He would use me as an instrument to add souls to His kingdom. I was filled with a wonderful sense of peace following my prayer. After lunch that day, as was our custom, my friends and I joined hands in a circle to pray. In the middle of the prayer, my phone rang. I quickly silenced it and wondered who could be calling at such an inopportune moment. Then the thought hit me: “What if that was Loma Linda?” I quickly dismissed the idea and refocused my attention on the group prayer. After the prayer ended, I checked my phone and discovered to my amazement that it was indeed Loma Linda. When I called back, the associate dean for admissions informed me that I had been accepted to the Loma Linda University School of Medicine.
I do not believe it was a coincidence that God opened the door to medicine for me on the exact day that I finally surrendered my own desires to Him, the day that I made a conscious choice to fully trust God’s plan for my life by simply asking Him to use me to win souls. It was as if God had been waiting for me to learn this final lesson before He could allow me to enter medical school. And now, four years later, I find myself a senior medical student applying this lesson all over again as I prepare to interview for residency programs and graduate. As I continue to progress in my medical training, my constant prayer is that God will make me into a physician after His own heart. I want to always point my patients to Christ, and I want to never forget the lesson He taught me: a physician’s highest calling is not simply to heal the body, but to save the soul.
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