John Pierce practiced in West Texas as a primary care internist for two decades, and then served on the faculties at the Texas Tech University School of Medicine and University of New Mexico School of Medicine (UNM).
Her husband and two daughters gathered around Mrs. Patterson’s bedside. After years of estrangement, her son Larry was also there, arriving a few hours before she died. Summoned to verify her death, I then expressed condolences and received the family’s thanks for serving as Mrs. Patterson’s long-time physician.
Larry followed me out of the room. With trembling voice and moist eyes, he said he desperately wished to tell me something. He recounted that as his mother was taking her last breath, he felt a calming presence and the sensation of someone holding his hand. “It was so comforting. I felt forgiven for all my shortcomings as a son. I immediately knew that it was Jesus who was holding my hand. That hand in mine was as real as yours when you shook my hand. And until now, I didn’t even believe in God.”
In my 40 years of practice, my patients or their family members sometimes shared these kinds of deeply personal religious experiences concurrent with a medical illness. Whenever they did, I always felt a little awkward, as if peering into the most intimate part of another’s soul. But I also felt enormously grateful to glimpse a compelling mystical experience. And reflecting on these experiences has deepened my own spiritual life.
Early in her nursing career, Sarah Christensen witnessed a very sick child having an earnest and happy conversation with his dead father. A few days later, the child died of leukemia. In her moving essay “Faith in Nursing” (Intima, Fall 2018), she explains how this mystical experience was deeply meaningful and professionally rewarding, and that it enriched her own spiritual life. Her engaging story resonated with my similar experiences.
During my journey with a serious disease, I had another of these religious encounters, this time as a patient and not as a doctor. As described in my essay “The Man Across From Me” (Intima, Spring 2023), a stranger offered insight into his religious experience with the fatal disease we shared. In a very familiar way, I felt a bit awkward—but in the end, spiritually enriched. Receiving these kinds of experiences have been one of the best parts of my doctoring life, something they didn’t teach me about in medical school.
John Pierce practiced in West Texas as a primary care internist for two decades, and then served on the faculties at the Texas Tech University School of Medicine and University of New Mexico School of Medicine (UNM). He retired from UNM in 2018 as Professor Emeritus. Some of his narratives have been published in The American Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of Graduate Medical Education. His journey with ALS has been characterized by an unexplained arrest of symptoms.