Called to Be a Doctor

This is an interview with Dr. Andrew Stenhouse, former president of Doulos Missions International, as he tells how he heard the audible voice of the Lord calling him to be a medical doctor at the age of 17. (Note: This was originally recorded in August 2016).

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Len: I wanted to ask you, Andrew, if you could please tell me that part about -- go back to the beginning where you first received your call. You had been a geology student, but then a female friend invited you to church, and while you were sitting there in church with her, you told me one time that you heard God speak to you in an audible voice and called you to be a doctor. So pick it up with the friend inviting you and go from there with that piece where you were in the church and how you heard from God.

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, this was a worship service. And I loved that and loved to go. And then during the preaching part, I heard the audible voice of God speak to me on the right side of my body. And I said to the young lady Ruth, “Did you hear somebody talk?”

She said, “Shush, Andrew. You don’t talk in church.”

I said, “I know.”

And then the next thing that happened was, it was the audible voice of God telling me I was going to be a doctor. And then nothing happened for a few minutes, and then suddenly, my whole body started to shake like a rag doll and it interfered with the service. And I suddenly said, “This is my Creator doing this,” and I started talking to God and telling Him how I hated the war in London during World War II and the bombs and blood and guts and people not coming back to school. And the one thing I didn’t want to do was be a doctor. So I kept on talking and the shaking got worse and worse. So I had to stop, thinking I might physically die. And so the next thing that happened was that I stopped talking, the shaking stopped, and then the voice spoke to me, not from my right side, but from the lower left side of my body.

And it’s as though the Holy Spirit or God was surrounding me, and said, “You will be a doctor.” It was a command.

And I said, “Yes, Lord, I will be a doctor.”

And that was how I got in, and from then on nothing else mattered in my life. My interests -- I immediately resigned from geology courses and also the Geological Survey where I was working. I was about seventeen at that time.

Len: Wow!

Dr. Stenhouse: And I changed islands, went to the south island, and took up pre-med at that time. None of the courses had I taken in the past. I had taken languages and geology mainly, and mathematics. And here I was doing courses that people have been trained for all their lives.

Len: Wow! Now you said the south island…what country was that?

Dr. Stenhouse: That’s New Zealand.

Len: Okay, so this all happened in New Zealand. And it was a lady named Ruth, a sister in Christ named Ruth that invited you to church.

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.

Len: Now when you were in that service, two things I want to know about it, if you can tell me. Do you remember what the -- when God first told you to be a doctor, how He said it to you? Not that it really matters, but do you remember what words He used when He said it the first time on your right side?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, as far as I remember, “You are to be a doctor.” “You are going to be a doctor,” or something like that.

Len: Yeah. Now the other thing I wanted to know was, when you say it disrupted the service, did you have pretty much a lot of people now with their attention focused on you?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, and everybody was moving away, as far as I know. And I left the service at that point after the whole thing was over. I didn’t stay in the service, because I couldn’t focus on anything else.

Len: Yeah, so people probably thought you were kind of strange.

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, very strange. And I had actually been brought up very strictly and didn’t realize that God would do that.

Len: Yeah, I mean, you would never have done anything like that on your own.

Dr. Stenhouse: Oh, no! Absolutely not! And everybody that I would tell it to thought I was nuts, you know.

Editor's Comments

This is truly an amazing testimony of how God called a man to serve Him as a medical doctor. One thing you need to learn from this is that you need to listen to the Lord's voice. It's extremely important. The voice of the Lord changes your outlook, especially when He shakes you like a rag doll like He did with Dr. Stenhouse. In order to hear the Lord's voice, you need to be less involved in distractions. You need to remove them from your life, such as texting.

Only eternity will tell all that the Lord actually did through this humble servant of His during those fifty-five years of medical practice. I know that there were miraculous healings that took place, the gospel was proclaimed to the sick and dying, and people were introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. Stenhouse served in many different capacities over those five decades. That included working for the US Navy in a medical school that he helped to establish in Afghanistan. It also included having his own Family Medical practice in Texas in the United States for a number of years, later serving as a Professor of Medicine for Texas Tech in Amarillo, Texas, as well as working at the Veterans' Administration Hospital there. Toward the end of his career, he spent a great deal of time working in a hospice caring for those who were dying, which was something he thoroughly enjoyed.

He is a model for other Christians who practice medicine, demonstrating how to serve patients not only from a physical and medical perspective, but also from a supernatural and spiritual one, so that their bodies might be healed and their souls saved.

Andrew loves the Lord with all His heart, and I have always known him to be a kind, loving, compassionate, generous person, who cares about people. When I asked him around 2007 to serve as the president for our ministry, Doulos Missions International, he humbly accepted it, feeling he was unworthy for such a task. Yet he served in that role for seven years, until he officially resigned in August 2014. He had actually tried to resign one year before that, due to his health, but agreed at my request to serve longer to help fulfill the need we had at that time. That was after he had retired from medicine, which he would not have done if it had not been for his health issues. He loved his profession, and put his heart into it. His resignation from our ministry's board of directors occurred one year after we had returned from the mission field of Eastern Europe to the United States.

During the time that he served as our ministry's president and chairman of the board, he was a tremendous blessing to us. Countless times he has been for us a source of godly counsel and wisdom from the Lord. He has upheld us in prayer, too. He always has and still does maintain his practice of asking the Father and hearing the Lord's voice, even though it may be the still small voice of the Holy Spirit in his heart, and not the audible voice of God like he heard so long ago in that church. Now in his 80's, he still continues to have two-way conversations with the Father.

If you are a Christian medical doctor, I hope that this testimony has encouraged you, as well as edified and guided you to serve the Lord with such honor, integrity, love, and compassion for people. I hope it has encouraged you to be bold and pray for the sick, trusting the Lord to heal them, as well as share the gospel with your patients and lead them to the Savior. You have a tremendous platform and a position of influence, so use it for the Lord.

If you are a Christian medical student or someone who is considering the medical profession, may this testimony be an encouragement to you, too, to hear the Lord's voice, whether audible or in your heart. Being a medical doctor is a calling, so you need to be sure it is your calling from God before you proceed down that path. Seek Him diligently in prayer and He will direct you. As the proverbs say:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." (Pr 3:5-6, NASB).

"In a man's heart he plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." (Pr 16:9).

God has had a plan for everyone since before the foundation of the world. Your life is foreordained. God has included you in His wonderful unfolding plan, but He will not violate your own free will. You can either choose to partner with Him by doing His will, as brother Stenhouse did, and experience the joy and excitement of doing so, or you can do your own will and forfeit all that, as well as eternal life. It's your choice.

Author's note: See the Home page of this blog for more podcasts on the life of Dr. Stenhouse. The next post is about his Medical Studies.

A more complete interview about his calling into medicine can be found here at The Voice That Changed Everything and the podcast at this link. You may access my complete blog directory at Writing for the Master. Now I'd like to ask a very important question.

Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus.  Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15).  He preached that we must repent and believe.

Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?"

_________________________________________________

Len Lacroix is the founder of Doulos Missions International.  He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission. www.dmiworld.org.

Residency

In my previous post, we covered the Lord's faithfulness that was evident in Dr. Andrew Stenhouse's Medical Studies. Now in this segment, we'll cover the residency that he did after returning from his special assignment to Roratonga in the Cook Islands.

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Len: Welcome to A Willing Heart to Please the Father. This is Len Lacroix, and I'm here tonight with my guest, Dr. Andrew Stenhouse. And we are here for another chapter of his life. And, Andrew, I want to welcome you back to the program.

Dr. Stenhouse: Thank you, Len, I appreciate it. And I enjoy these sessions, because they, I hope, glorify the Lord and don't in any way glorify me, because without the Lord I would have been down a hole.

Len: Yes. Well they have. And I think it's going to bless a lot of people.

And we finished the last chapter talking about your medical studies and your return from Rarotonga to Hamilton, which is on the North Island of New Zealand. 

And, tonight, we're going to pick it up right there, where we ended the last one, and we're going to talk about your residency. So this would be when you moved from Hamilton to--take it from there, where you moved to for your second year. 

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, I'd like to first make a few clarifications. 

After a person graduates from medical school, you get a cap and a gown, and you go through a formal session of being capped as a doctor-- an M.D.

And so, the first two years after that are called a “doctor’s residency”. We are doctors, but we are in a resident for two years--the first two years after graduation. And then, the third and fourth years after graduation, we are in a registrar position, which is a supervisory plus medical treatments assessment, where we take care, not only of patients, but we supervise the residents who are on the team that we are working with.

Len: Right.

Dr. Stenhouse: So I hope that that may clarify, because it is difficult to understand.

Len: Yeah, so thank you for clarifying that. So, when we talk about your residency, at this point, you had actually already done your first year of residency in Hamilton, after you finished that several months in Rarotonga, where you did a special assignment. Now you were moving to where, for your second-year residency?

[Correction: Dr. Stenhouse completed his fifth year of medical studies in Hamilton after returning from his research in Raratonga, then he completed his sixth year of medical studies in Christchurch, NZ, followed by his first house surgeon's year back in Hamilton, NZ, and his second house surgeon's year in Murupura, NZ.] 

Dr. Stenhouse: To Murupara. 

Len: Okay.

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, in the second-year residency, I felt called, because they didn't have a doctor associated with it; they have a medical hospital there strictly for obstetrics. 

I needed to go there--I felt the Lord was calling me there to help them out, with regard to having a doctor and, at the same time, fulfilling my second year as a resident.

Len: So was this like you had a choice, where you could have taken the assignment or chosen not to go to Murupara? 

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, I had a choice whether to stay in Hamilton or to go to Murupara…

Len: Okay. So you accepted that. 

Dr. Stenhouse: …for the second year of being a resident.

Len: Okay.

Dr. Stenhouse: And there was one of us that went, and that was me. And so, anyway, it was a very interesting year. And a lot of things occurred during that year that were very interesting. 

For example, I was the dentist in the area, as well. Although I’d never taken a tooth out, I had to take care of bad teeth. And they did, indeed, in spite of my not knowing it, have one set of pliers for extracting teeth. Because that’s what they are—they’re sort of super pliers. But this one was found in the doctor's office there and apparently came from Germany; it was left there by a German missionary. And so I was glad to have that!

Len: Yeah! What era were they from?

Dr. Stenhouse: They were from the late 1800s—this one pair of pliers.

Len: Wow! One old pair of pliers, from a missionary, from way back in the 1800s. 

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.

Len: And you were using that to pull teeth out. Now that wasn’t even something that was part of your medical training; so you kind of got thrown into that, right?

Dr. Stenhouse: I had never taken a tooth out, except my own. No. That was one of the things that was interesting.

The other thing was being by myself, delivering babies--the nearest obstetrical hospital is fifty-five miles away. 

And most of the patients were Maoris, because they were the group of people that lived out in the bush in Murupara.

Len: Okay. I see.

Dr. Stenhouse: And I always had people in the delivery room that I had never seen before, come in, ready to deliver. So this could happen day or night.

Len: Wow! Think about that! That's pretty serious, because, normally, a doctor would have been seeing an obstetrics patient during her pregnancy, but these people would just show up when they're ready to deliver. So you had no history on them; you don't know anything about the risk factors involved or anything like that, or even the patient. They're just presenting to you—they need you to deliver their baby.

Dr. Stenhouse: That's correct, yes.

Len: Were they coming from places that were farther away, or mainly right there?

Dr. Stenhouse: They were from the area. It was called a bush area in medical terminology; and they were really from within, say, twenty miles of the hospital. 

Len: Okay.

Dr. Stenhouse: So anyway—thank you, Lord, for taking care of me during that time, because he was the one that did all of the work. I listened, and I did what I heard to do. And one of the easiest ways I found to get a tooth out that’s bad is to find the thinnest side of the bone and to make a little crack, or fracture, in that inside part of the jaw; and the tooth falls out when you try and help it. Otherwise, you're in quite a mess. 

Len: Yeah.

Dr. Stenhouse: So, the Lord showed me to do that.

Len: Wow! But with the pregnancies—with the deliveries—did you have much training in that type of thing? Because you weren’t an obstetrician—or an OBGYN. So did you really have very much training in delivering babies?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, we all had to do about ten to twelve deliveries on our own—supervised, of course; and we did that as part of our training. But if there had been any complications that were severe, I would not have seen them before, you know. 

Len: Did you have any that got complicated?

Dr. Stenhouse: Oh, yes. I had some complicated patients. But the Lord showed me what to do and guided me; and we got through everything. I didn't lose any babies. 

Len: Wow! Praise God!

Dr. Stenhouse: And the mothers were pleased. And I gave them lots of anesthetic, as I did with the dentist part—gave them lots of anesthetic. They called me the painless doctor. So, anyway, I gave the ladies the local anesthetic, and we got every baby out healthy.

Len: Wow!

Dr. Stenhouse: And I’ll give you a story about one of the babies that came out—a beautiful child—and the mother started to cry.  And I said, “What's wrong, dear?” 

And she said, “Oh, he's done it again!” 

And I said, “What did he do again?”

And she said, “He's given my baby away.”

Len: What?!

Dr. Stenhouse: And the husband would be betting on his child. 

Len: Oh, no.

Dr. Stenhouse: Because the hospitals and government gave them about seven dollars or ten dollars a month for every child they have. And he was using the future child's money for betting. 

Len: Wow! 

Dr. Stenhouse: So, she was crying because of that—I mean, he cried because of it, too. But I didn’t say anything to him because they were bigger than me.

Len: Yeah. So when you did these deliveries, did they have at least a nurse there to assist you?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, they had a nurse, a nurse who specialized in it. And they were very helpful, and they knew what to do. I’d tell them what the next thing to do was, and they would do it. And they were very helpful.

Len: Yeah. So, you did these deliveries, and by the grace of God you didn't lose a single baby. That's amazing! 

Dr. Stenhouse: No, no.

Len: Did you ever have a patient name the child after you?

Dr. Stenhouse: Oh yes! They would say, “Doctor, can we call this patient 'Andrew'?” 

And I would say, “Because you asked, you can.” 

Len: So now, if you go back to Murupara, there’s probably these babies from that era, a bunch of Andrews living around there.

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, there will be a bunch of Andrews running around over there.

Len: So, any other experiences that you want to tell us about in Murupara?

Dr. Stenhouse: Not really. It was a most exciting time for me because I also had to do surgical work—sewing up everything.  And then, I was also the doctor for another little town called Kaingaroa and would have a practice there. Every week I’d have to go up. And the only other interesting thing was that great lorries filled with trees would follow me down the road and try and run me off the road at night when I’d go home. 

Len: Wow! 

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, they would follow me at great speeds down the road. 

Len: Wow! These big trucks carrying trees—like logging trucks, right?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, logging trucks. And I’d ask the Lord, “Lord, you got me here. Get me out of this.”

Len: Now, how did you get to that other location that you had to go to once a week? Did you use public transportation, or did you have a vehicle?

Dr. Stenhouse: No, I had a car. 

Len: Okay.

Dr. Stenhouse: I would drive my car up there and drive back. 

Len: So, when you finished your time there—your residency in Murupara, out in the bush—then, where did you return to afterwards?

Dr. Stenhouse: After Murupara in the bush, was my second year of residency. And the next thing we had was first year of registrar. In addition to two years of residency, after you graduate from medical school, you have two years of residency, and then two years as a registrar.

[NOTE: He completed both registrar years in Dunedin, NZ. The first year he worked for the Professor of Medicine, and the second year was for the Dean of the Medical School.]

Len: Okay.

Dr. Stenhouse: And I was about to start my registrar period of time.

Len: Okay. Where did you go for that?

Dr. Stenhouse: I went back to Dunedin. 

Len: Okay.

Dr. Stenhouse: I got called back there—asked if I would come there, and I said, “Yes, I'd love to come back to Dunedin." So, that's sort of another chapter in my life—the beginning of the registrar period of time.

Len: Yeah. So, the place you went to in Dunedin was a hospital that was a teaching hospital. Correct?

Dr. Stenhouse: Correct. Yes.

Len: What position did you get assigned to there?

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, it was really interesting. I applied for a position in the Department of Medicine, and also that came with the position as a registrar at the hospital. And the Lord arranged things. 

It's really funny, Len, when you be obedient, the Lord arranges everything; and if you don't struggle over everything, Father takes care of everything and takes care of you. 

But what happened was that I applied for a position as a registrar. And usually in the first year you were a junior registrar, and in the second year, you were a senior registrar. But when I got down there, they had positioned me as the senior registrar doing the second year work for the professor of medicine, who was also a doctor at the hospital.

Len: He was the chief professor of medicine, right?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.

Len: In New Zealand?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.

Len: So that was quite amazing there. You skipped over being a junior registrar and went right, straight to being a senior registrar. That was unusual. But I think that when you stand back and look at it, you know, the Bible says, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up in due time.” And you took that humble position out in the bush, which was not typical for someone to do that, and God gave you this senior registrar position. 

And also there's another verse in Psalm 75 that says, “No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man, but it is God who judges.”

Dr. Stenhouse: That’s right.

Len: “He brings one down; he exalts another.” So he gave you this position that you weren't really even seeking after, right—the senior registrar position. 

Dr. Stenhouse: No, it surprised me.

Len: So, was there any push-back from anybody there about you getting that position?

Dr. Stenhouse: Oh, yes. There was a lot of talk about my getting the position that people had been waiting for two or three years to get this position. And they were very upset with me. And in their own way they tried to take it out of me; but it didn't bother me much, because I knew it wasn't me that did it, but the Lord did it for me.

Len: What kinds of things did they do to kind of try to get you?

 Dr. Stenhouse: Well, what they would do is they would call in sick--when they weren’t sick--when they were on call. And so this was the main thing, where they would increase my load of work by calling in sick that day.

Or a lady doctor had rheumatoid arthritis, and she'd always get a flare up, she said, when she was on-call. So she could never be on-call. 

Len: Wow!

Dr. Stenhouse: There were lots of instances like that.

Len: Yeah.

Dr. Stenhouse: But, you know, you just take them, and the Lord goes before you. And you just smile and go on.

Len: Now, tell me, just briefly, a little bit about the role of a registrar; and then after that, tell me the role of a senior registrar, because most of us lay people are not really familiar with this term, except maybe in an academic institution. But in a medical hospital—teaching hospital—what role does a registrar play?

Dr. Stenhouse: A registrar is above both of the residents. And so, first of all, he takes care of the residents and makes sure that what they do is appropriate. And then the junior registrar is being checked by the senior registrar and has to go over all of the work that he has done on the admissions that were admitted. 

And then, in addition to that, the senior registrar is in charge of all of the doctors that send patients to the emergency room. So you have to go and check all of the patients in the emergency room to make sure that they are appropriate admissions and make sure that the medicines they were given were correct and the treatments and so on. 

Len: Right.

Dr. Stenhouse: And in addition to that, in the teaching hospital, the senior registrar was responsible for teaching not only the residents, which are the junior doctors, but also the medical students, when it’s a teaching hospital.

So the work was quite exhausting, in a way, because I would work many times through the night and then have to just keep going the next day.

Len: Wow! So a registrar—they have to practice medicine on their floor—

Dr. Stenhouse: Yeah.

Len: —in their department. Plus, in addition to seeing patients, they're also overseeing junior doctors--the residents on their floor. 

So, for example, when a resident goes to see a patient that has been admitted onto the floor, the registrar follows up, right, to go and see that patient? And then they talk with the resident to see what his plan is for caring for that patient?

Dr. Stenhouse: That's correct, Len. And then in a teaching hospital, when you’ve got over you a professor, you teach the doctors coming in—both the residents and the junior registrars. So I was responsible for teaching people that actually had been doctors longer than myself.

Len: Ok. So these registrars—you would have one on each floor, right? 

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, at least one.

Len: Yeah, at least one per floor—they were overseeing the residents on their floor. and then you, as the senior registrar, had your responsibilities with patients, plus the emergency room; and you also had your oversight, as a supervisory role over the other registrars.

Dr. Stenhouse: Right. And then I had to do the majority of the teaching to the students.

Len: Ok. Very interesting. Well, that was a lot of responsibility that you were given; and you skipped over some things that other people had to go through. But, you can definitely see the Lord's hand in that. And, despite the fact that people were jealous and tried to get that from you, what ended up happening? I mean, with the chief professor, did he just change his mind after all the push-back he got from other doctors?

Dr. Stenhouse: No. No, they never changed their mind, and they were very grateful for what I did.

Len: Yeah, that's wonderful! 

Now, what influenced the chief professor’s decision when you came in from Hamilton to Dunedin—actually, you didn't come from Hamilton; you came from Murupara, but you had previously been in Hamilton. And when you came to do Dunedin, what was it that influenced?—basically your past reputation with the other doctors in Hamilton?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, that was the reason that I got the position. Unbeknownst to me, the chief of the hospital, who was different from the chief of medicine, had called the chief doctor at Hamilton and found out about me and was told, “Don’t put anyone else but Stenhouse in that position.”

Len: Wow! Praise God! Well, the Lord is good. And that's a wonderful testimony about the faithfulness of God again, and your willingness to serve him in the bush, you know, which is all part of the theme of A Willing Heart to Please the Father.

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.

Len: So, Andrew, I want to thank you very much for being with us tonight and sharing your life experiences with us back there during your residency. And thank you very much. And we're going to close this out and finish our chapter for tonight. And I look forward to our next talk together.

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, I look forward to it, too, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody listening realized that it wasn’t Andrew that was doing all this; it was my Heavenly Father.

Len: Absolutely. Thank you.

Dr. Stenhouse: And all I had to do was be obedient to Him...

Len: That's right.

Dr. Stenhouse: ...in every instance.

Len: That's right! Well thank you, Andrew; and God bless you.

Dr. Stenhouse: Thank you, Len.

Len: Have a good night.

Dr. Stenhouse:  You too; good night.

Len: Good night.

Author's note: The next chapter in this series is Post Graduate Experiences of God's Faithfulness. See the Home page of this blog for more podcasts on the life of Dr. Stenhouse. You may access my complete blog directory at Writing for the Master. Now I'd like to ask a very important question.

Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus.  Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15).  He preached that we must repent and believe.

Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?"

_________________________________________________

Len Lacroix is the founder of Doulos Missions International.  He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission. www.dmiworld.org. 

Post Graduate Experiences

In my previous post, we covered the Lord's faithfulness that was evident in Dr. Andrew Stenhouse's Residency. Now in this segment, we'll cover his post graduate experiences of God's faithfulness.

Audio

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Len: Welcome to A Willing Heart to Please the Father! This is Len Lacroix, and I'm here tonight on the program with my guest, Dr Andrew Stenhouse, and we're continuing to talk about his life story.

Tonight we're discussing his post-graduate experiences of God's faithfulness. So, Andrew, I want to welcome you to the program, once again.

Dr. Stenhouse: Len, thank you for introducing me! And I would just like to thank everybody that’s listening and bring glory to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Len: So beginning with the [post-graduate] exam, can you talk about that?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, I can. The final year after graduation from medical school is the senior registrar year. And during this, you’re able to take an exam in the Royal College of Australasian Physicians. And this is a prestigious exam and only has a very few people that ever graduate from this.

When I took it at the beginning of that year, I was the senior registrar to the dean of the medical school. And, as part of my duty, I took this exam at that time.

The exam itself consisted of several portions of exam papers, followed by a long patient case and then multiple small, short, questions, and substances that we had to discuss. 

In this exam, twenty people were being examined from both New Zealand and Australia. And at the end of the sessions, only two of us passed out of the twenty. So it only had a ten-percent pass rate. So you could see that it was very, severely judged, and persons had to make no mistakes at all! But then you had to go over and above that, with what you said.

I was the only one from New Zealand to pass, but there was a doctor from Australia that had come over to take the exam, because it was from the Australasian College of Physicians, which is both Australia and New Zealand.

During the exam, the long patient that I had was a patient of some rarity. The Lord had me, during the year, take and read and put into my memory the new, long, difficult cases that were coming up across the world (e.g., in the New England Journal of Medicine).

And it so happened that the patient I had was one of those cases; he was about number fourteen out of twenty cases that I had memorized and taken into account.

The doctor that examined me did not believe that I had not seen the patient before, and he asked me, several hours later, I must have seen the patient before. 

I said, “No, sir, I haven't.”

Then he went, saw the patient; the patient said, “No,” he hadn’t seen me before, although he indicated to the examiner he wished he had.

And it turned out to be an obedience that I had on going through these long cases; one of them was this very patient that I diagnosed correctly. And I give all glory to the Lord…

Len: Wow! That’s amazing!

Dr. Stenhouse: ...because if He had not given me that instruction, then I would never have done that on my own accord.

Len: Yeah! So the exam, now—just so that I understand it--was mainly written, right? So you had the written account of this patient’s long case. Is that correct so far?

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, we had a series of different things. We had long cases that we had to see and examine and short cases that we had to see and examine. And then we had papers to write on subjects we didn't know ahead of time what they were to be.

Len: Okay.

Dr. Stenhouse: And then we had pathological specimens that we had to identify correctly. It was a long and involved examination over several days.

Len: So this patient that had the long case, which was already written up in one of the medical journals that you had been reading each month, they had that person there at the hospital for you to see? I mean, I don't understand that part. Did you actually, at some point, see them or not?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, that was my long-case exam that I had to go in the room with--he and I only--, and I had to examine him, and so forth, and then look at the x-rays that were provided for me.

Len: Okay. And, with the case that was written up in the medical journals, had they yet figured out in the medical journals what the diagnosis was?

Dr. Stenhouse: In the diagnosis part, this had been diagnosed correctly by the doctor that wrote up the patient.

Len: In the journal.

Dr. Stenhouse: That’s right.

Len: So you had read that story, and then when you got this case--you said that the doctor that was overseeing the exam asked the patient if they had seen you before, and they said, “No;” and you hadn’t seen them. But then you did eventually have to see them for the exam piece, right?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes. They asked me to see him, and I correctly made the diagnosis, because it fit exactly the patient that I had seen in the medical journal, several months previously.

Len: Was it actually the same person or just the same kind of case?

Dr. Stenhouse: The same case, not the same person.

Len: Okay, that helps, because I thought it was the same person. So thanks for clarifying that. So that's amazing!

Well the next thing I would like to ask you to talk about--because a moment ago you mentioned being the senior registrar to the dean, but actually I think that was the title when you were at the teaching hospital--you were the senior registrar to the chief professor of medicine.

But this next piece here, you became the chief resident of the dean of the medical school; that was something different, right, from the senior registrar?

Dr. Stenhouse: Being the senior registrar to the dean of the medical school was even higher than being registrar of the chief of medicine. And so it was a promotion, as well, for my final registrar year.

Len: Okay. Was it chief resident or senior resident? What did they call it?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, chief resident or senior resident would be fine—either way.

Len: Yeah, so are there any experiences that you had in that role that you wanted to share?

Dr. Stenhouse: Well one of the things that came up was that the dean's daughter was sick, and I was asked to see her. And I made up a diagnosis, and the dean did not agree with me that this was the correct diagnosis of his daughter.

So we got the professor of surgery to come in, because I said the patient required surgery. And the chief of surgery, who was an older doctor, agreed with me and agreed with the findings on x-ray, that surgery was needed. And so that the dean agreed that we should go ahead with the surgery, and the surgery proved us to be correct.

Really, it points out the fact that the doctor shouldn’t really examine or take a history of his children.

Len: Yeah.

Dr. Stenhouse: Get them to a doctor a doctor that does that.

Len: Yeah. Now what about the Wellcome Research scholarship that you ended up receiving? Do you want to tell us about that?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, one of the things that I was approached to do was to apply for the first New Zealand recipient of a Wellcome Research Fellowship and to do it in experimental virology with the professor in Sheffield, England--the professor of medicine at Sheffield England who was a virologist also.

So this was what we applied for, and what we, by God’s sovereignty, went into. And so this was an interesting time, as well, to do post-graduate degree, to do post-graduate research and to also take the London School of Medicine exam, similar to the Australasian one, only it’s a little more difficult.

Len: Okay, so tell us about the sea voyage to England to go to Sheffield for that work--that research fellowship.

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, well it was very interesting on the sea voyage going to England. I was able to go there for two shillings and six pennies if I would be acting as the doctor onboard for the seamen, you know the—

Len: Oh, the crew?

Dr. Stenhouse: The crew.

Len: Not the passengers?

Dr. Stenhouse: They had ten passengers, as well.

Len: Okay. So you were agreeing to be the doctor for everyone on the ship.

Dr. Stenhouse: That’s right.

Len: Okay. And so that's pretty interesting! And was the trip kind of uneventful, or did you have any interesting experiences?

Dr. Stenhouse: No, it wasn't uneventful. Every day I would have an appointment with patients that needed to see me. And this particular day, what happened was that one of the sailors went to work. And when he was at work, they emptied the swimming pool, and he didn't know that. And so, when he got off work, he got his swim-gear on and then dived into the pool that was empty and broke his neck and injured his spinal cord. So I had to manage him medically with a fractured neck and pressure on his spinal cord, which was kind of tricky and difficult. 

And then I had a patient with acute appendicitis, that I had to manage medically, and another patient with a fracture.

And the man who was the captain of the ship told me that he didn't think he could wait for me in Curaçao, which is a port where we stopped to fill up the ship with whatever we used to go across.

Len: The fuel.

Dr. Stenhouse: And I said, “Well we've got to get these in the hospital.” I said, “They can’t wait.”

So we got ambulances lined up, and I took them to the hospital at Curaçao, where they had--this was a Dutch island—a resort thing in the northern part of the South America Peninsula.

Len: Oh!

Dr. Stenhouse: So I got them all safely tucked to in over there and then just got in time back to the ship, where they were filling the ship up with the gasoline. And we took off within the hour of my getting back…

Len: That’s cutting it close.

Dr. Stenhouse: …, because he was wanting to break the record of the time to get half-a-million sheep from New Zealand to England.

Len: So the ship was carrying sheep?

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.

Len: Half-a-million sheep?! 

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, dead sheep.

Len: Oh. Okay. Wow, that's quite a load--quite a bit of cargo there! So how many--do you know how long it took to get there--from New Zealand to England?

Dr. Stenhouse: About thirty days.

Len: Okay. That is pretty fast to go from that part of the world all the way around to England.

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.

Len: So did you end up arriving on time?--or early?

Dr. Stenhouse: No, we arrived on time, and he was quite happy about it. 

And there were one or two days I would be seasick and having to see somebody; and I would be lying down, and the patient would be standing up. So…

Len: Interesting!

Dr. Stenhouse: You just have to run with whatever comes.

Len: Yeah. So when you got to England did you make that phone call to--tell us about the phone call that you made to whoever your contact was over there for the fellowship.

Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, I made contact with them, and the doctor--that was the manager of that particular job he had, which was identifying people for jobs in London or near London from people who came from overseas -- he called me, and he said, “Dr. Stenhouse, I know you have a fellowship to do two years with the professor in Sheffield,” but he says, “I've got a letter here that I've never seen so much good things said about one person. And I could get you any job in London you wanted to have.”

Len: That’s amazing!

Dr. Stenhouse: So I said, “Well I’d love to meet you.” And so I went and met him, and I told him I wasn’t going to change what had been arranged.

Len: Good.

Dr. Stenhouse: And so that was the end of that; I didn't see him again.

Len: So did you publish any papers for any journals during that time?

Dr. Stenhouse: Well, yes, at the end of the time I was working there, I did patient studies, I did lab studies, and I did isolation studies on new organ cultures of different animals.

And so I isolated different viruses and was able to publish two papers by myself, which is very unusual to do that. 

Len: Which journal was that, Andrew?

Dr. Stenhouse: This was in the British Medical Journal—two separate papers. And, as a result of this, things opened up all over the place if I had wanted them, but I didn't pursue them.

I would just like to reiterate that this may sound like me, but it really is the Father and the Son being so faithful to me and faithful to everybody that opens up their hearts to Him. 

Len: Yeah. Amen.

Well that's a great testimony, Andrew. I think we're going to conclude there for tonight, with your post-graduate experiences. And we can definitely see the hand of the Lord--how he got you through your post-graduate exam and all the way through to the point where you had written those two papers by yourself there in the British Medical Journal.

[Note: See articles 1 and 2 in Medical Articles Published by Dr. Stenhouse.]

So thank you very much for sharing all that on tonight's program!

Dr. Stenhouse: You're so welcome! And I'll pick up there with the post-graduate exam of studies and results at the beginning of the next program.

Len: All right. Until then, thanks very much, and have a good night!

Dr. Stenhouse: You too, Len! Thank you so much!

Author's note: The next chapter in this story is Experiences with the Lord in England. See the Home page of this blog for more podcasts on the life of Dr. Stenhouse. You may access my complete blog directory at Writing for the Master. Now I'd like to ask a very important question.

Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus.  Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15).  He preached that we must repent and believe.

Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?"

_________________________________________________

Len Lacroix is the founder of Doulos Missions International.  He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission. www.dmiworld.org. 

Homegoing

On Wednesday, September 15th, Dr. Andrew Stenhouse  transitioned into his heavenly home. He was my best friend, a member of the board for Doulos Missions International, the ministry I founded, in which I currently serve, and he had served for several years as the President of the Board.

I would like to share with you some of the interesting things that led up to his homegoing. 

September 11, 2021

On Saturday September 11th, I had a discussion with my family at the dinner table, in which I mentioned that it may just be best for Andrew to go home be with the Lord at this time, because of the present circumstances in our world. I think I mentioned to them, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” This comes from the passage in Revelation that says:

"Then I heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.'"

“'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.'” (Rev 14:13)

We knew that he was ill, but did not know for sure that this would be the time when the Lord would take him home. 

September 12, 2021

The passage of Scripture that my daughters read the following morning of Sunday, September 12th seemed to confirm our discussion the previous night at dinner. It was the following passage from Isaiah that they read: 

“The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.” (Isa 57:1-2)

Although they all read that passage individually and separately during their own quiet time with the Lord, as part of the portion of Scripture they had all agreed in advance to read that week, at least two of them sensed when they read those verses that it confirmed what we had been discussing the previous night at dinner about the Lord taking Andrew home to be with Him.

September 14, 2021

Andrew's daughter called me at 8:33 PM and let me speak very briefly to Andrew, who was in his hospital bed having a “cognitive moment”. I told him that we are believing God for a miraculous healing, if it is the Lord’s will to do so, but that this may be the time when he must soon go to be with the Lord. After she took the phone back, she said that he said, “Thank you.” I responded “That’s great.” And she told him what I said.

She then told me that she had been seeing golden specks like glitter appearing on his face that would come, and then at other times they would seem to fade.  But they would come and go. I said, “It’s supernatural. It's something heavenly.” And she agreed. It was truly the glory of God appearing upon him in a visible way. The Scripture describes what was happening to him, how his unveiled face was reflecting the Lord's glory, as he was being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory:

"And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2Co 3:18)

A few moments later, I texted her, telling her to read out loud to him 2 Cor 5:1-10 (NIV), and she did so. It says:

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” (2Co 5:1-10)

September 15th, 2021- Yom Kippur

Nearly twenty-four hours later, I got a text from his daughter at 7:40 PM EDT that said, “Len, Daddy just transitioned into his heavenly home.” I prayed and committed his spirit into the Father's hands. The Hebrew Day of Atonement known as Yom Kippur had just begun on that very same evening.

Only a few brief moments later, as I was driving in the car with my boys to pick up my daughter at work, we played the above Scripture passage from 2 Cor 5:1-10 on my audio iBible. And as I was imagining what Andrew might have been thinking when his daughter read it to him the night before on his death bed, I felt the presence of the Lord upon me. Praise the Lord! That was further confirmation for me that he was now in glory, and that what that passage assures us will happen when the righteous die had now happened to my dear brother Andrew. He is now in his eternal house in heaven not built by human hands. He is now clothed with his heavenly dwelling. What was mortal has been swallowed up by life. He had a willing heart to please the Father while he was in the body, and now he is away from the body and at home with the Lord, but I'm sure his goal is still to please the Father.

He was probably the most godly person I have ever known. He was a man of prayer who, during his retirement years, spent many hours each day in prayer, a significant part of that time interceding for the needs of others. He had a heart for souls, especially the lost. He would take the Lord's Supper daily. He was also perhaps the most generous person I have ever known, whether it was tipping the help, paying for a conference, giving an offering, or supporting a missionary. He would sometimes prepare to write a check to someone, and the Lord would tell him to add another zero on the end of the number he had in mind, which he would obediently do. He cheerfully gave so much that at the end of his medical career, he lived in a modest home, not in a great big, luxurious mansion. And later when it became necessary for health reasons, he lived humbly in a one-bedroom apartment in senior housing. He did not store up treasures for himself on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, but rather in heaven where neither moth nor rust corrupt. Now he has received his eternal reward that God prepared for him and wears a crown that will never fade away.

Here is the tribute made to him in his home town's local news. 

_________________________

Author's note: Our dear brother Andrew transitioned to his heavenly home in glory on September 15th, 2021 at the age of 87. This post, written on October 5, 2021, has been back dated to March 5th, in order for it to appear at the end of the series of posts, where it should be. See the Home page of this blog for more podcasts on the life of Dr. Stenhouse. You may access my complete blog directory at Writing for the Master. Now I'd like to ask a very important question.

Do You Want to Know Him?
If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus.  Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15).  He preached that we must repent and believe.

Please see my explanation of this in my post called "Do You Want to Know Jesus?"

_________________________________________________

Len Lacroix is the founder of Doulos Missions International.  He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission. www.dmiworld.org.