Charting the Future: Mary Coday
Health care education will play a great role in the future of Northwest University. In our 1949 charter, the founders of the emerging Northwest College envisioned that we would one day establish a hospital, and nursing degrees figured prominently in their hopes. It would take decades to start offering health care majors, but in the past 25 years we have built a first-rate nursing school, an APA-accredited Doctor of Psychology program, strong master's degree programs to train licensed professional counselors, and successful pre-med and exercise science majors. Over the next year, we will take things further as we start accepting applications for new degrees to train physician assistants and doctors of physical therapy. In the summer of 2024, the new programs will begin educating critically-needed professionals to staff our overburdened health care system.
Today's video features Dr. Mary Coday, a deeply committed Christian and Harvard-trained ophthalmologist. She serves as medical director of our Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies. In her video, she talks about what it means to put Jesus first in training physician assistants. The depth of her faith is obvious, and we're proud to have her influence in our program right from the start.
Mary got me thinking about our university slogan, "Jesus first, Jesus always." Clearly, it faces the same limitations as any slogan. The poet e.e. cummings wrote, "Dive for dreams, or a slogan may topple you." I think he meant to refer to the fact that slogans are not designed to explain deep truths, but rather, to gain attention. Our slogan certainly gets attention, but it also contains a deep truth that deserves explication. In a hospital, it might justifiably feel like the doctor should put the patient first and leave their religion at the door. Such a response would not reflect what we mean by always putting Jesus first. For us, putting Jesus first means that we want every patient to be treated as though he or she were Jesus. Christian medical personnel realize that when they treat the sick, they fulfill Jesus' saying that “…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40 NIV). They understand that their best gift of love to Jesus is to treat their patients as they would treat Him, and that demands the highest standard of excellence and care.
We hope you will feel the same excitement we do about training Christian health care professionals. These programs imply start-up costs totaling millions of dollars and straining our resources to the max. If you would be interested in helping us financially, don't hesitate to respond to this email. I'll get right back to you!
As for the hospital our founders envisioned, I can only say, "First things first!" Kirkland doesn't need another hospital, but it's a big world out there.