From the Temple Daily Telegram by Janice Gibbs / Telegram Staff
Appreciative of the small but meaningful connections he’s made with his health care providers over the years while dealing with kidney disease, Stephen Bennett, a well regarded acoustic guitarist, shared his insights with medical professionals at Baylor Scott & White–Temple during the Pete and Erin Huttlinger Series on Humanities in Medicine.
The lecture, Outliving Your Destiny, was sponsored by the Texas A&M College of Medicine chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. The purpose of the organization is to help health care professionals to unite and rekindle their passion for medicine and compassionate patient care.
The goal of the lecture series is to provide presenters with extraordinary stories told in formats that incorporate the arts.
“The intent is to help health care professionals take away personal messages and tools to manage and respond to the adversity we all face in our demanding careers and personal lives,” said Dr. Lori Wick, Baylor Scott & White pediatric critical care specialist.
The first lecture in November 2015 featured Pete Huttlinger, a world-renowned musician who dealt with lifelong complications associated with congenital heart disease, including a stroke in 2010 that resulted in right side paralysis. He recovered and with his wife toured the world sharing his message of “Don’t Just Live, Live Well.” Huttlinger died in January as a result of a stroke.
The Huttlingers’ message of living well applies to every person every day, including physicians and their patients, Wick said. The lecture series was named in Huttlingers’ honor earlier this year.
Erin Huttlinger said being part of the Humanities in Medicine series does her heart good.
When discussions began on who would be invited to speak in November, Huttlinger said she immediately thought of Bennett, who was admired by her late husband.
“They both experienced catastrophic health issues on parallel timelines and supported each other as much as they could,” she said. “Each had an acute understanding of what it was like for a musician not to be able to play his instrument or to perform or to record.”
Bennett was tasked to share his story of dealing with his health experiences and how he carried on with Baylor Scott & White physicians, health care providers and A&M medical students.
“What you do is noble and essential,” he told his audience. “Healing is inherently altruistic … someone using their knowledge and skill for the clear benefit of another.”
Restoring health is the promise of more time and a future that has a ripple effect, Bennett said.
“What the medical profession did for Pete Huttlinger had immediate implications for him and for Erin, the love of his life,” he said. “It also had implications for all of their family members, all of their friends and all of Pete’s fans.”
Seemingly small actions between individuals can lead to much larger consequences, Bennett said.
Bennett inherited PKD, polycystic kidney disease, from his farther, who inherited it from his mother. His father had a kidney transplant and died seven years later at age 59.
When Bennett had his kidney transplant he told his doctor he wanted more years post transplant than his father.
“Last year, in October, on the very day my lifespan passed that of my dad’s I was on the eastern edge of Germany listening to a symphony orchestra perform music I’d composed,” he said.
Bennett was diagnosed at age 20. In 2007, Bennett was told it was time to stop traveling and get into a transplant program. In 2008, he had a double nephrectomy, the removal of his two kidneys. Bennett was lucky, he had five living donors ready to give him a kidney.
His ex-brother-in-law, who had been married to his now ex-wife’s sister, was the closest match.
“A working kidney, along with the initial high dosage of prednisone, gave my skin a glow I hadn’t had for a very long time, he said.
His surgeon, Bennett said, had all the documentation designating he had the training to be good at his job.
“I will always be most at ease with a combination of medical expertise and obvious humanity, the willingness to deliver or endure a bad joke is in my book, at least, one possible indicator that someone is human,” he said.
Bennett’s brothers, John and Jim, and his son, Will, have PKD. Bennett’s current wife, Nancy, donated her kidney to his brother, John, in March.
Nancy didn’t get nervous until it was time for her kidney to be surgically removed, he said. When it was time to go into pre-op her nerves began to fray.
A little later they met Nancy’s surgeon, and she asked him to “to do your best.”
“Dr. Cortez smiled warmly and touched her gently, but firmly, on the leg and replied ‘We’ll take good care of you.’” Bennett said. “It was a very simple but powerful interaction, because at that moment she was able to relax.”
The genuine smile and touch was an assurance that her wellbeing was his top priority that day.
“His humanity and warmth that day came through brilliantly,” he said.
To deal with pressures of a practicing physican’s daily life and not become a little robotic is not a small thing, Bennett said. People react well to those they interact with and who they perceive as being genuinely caring.
“If we patients think you care we register and appreciate that,” he said. “It doesn’t take much.”
“I’m in awe of and have enormous appreciation for what you all do,” Bennett said. “Sometimes it allows patients like me the possibility of resuming our lives and gives us our turn to add something positive to the world.”
Bennett’s presentation included him performing on his harp guitar two of his compositions. He also performed in concert Thursday evening, with proceeds benefiting the pediatric dialysis center.