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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Dr. Andrew Stenhouse’s postgraduate journey marked a season of extraordinary professional achievement, divine alignment, and global travel.

As he completed his final year as senior registrar to the chief professor of medicine in Dunedin, he faced one of the most rigorous and prestigious hurdles in medical training: the fellowship examinations for the Royal College of Australasian Physicians, covering both Australia and New Zealand. Out of twenty elite candidates who sat for the grueling multi-day exam—which included written papers, pathological specimen identification, and long and short clinical cases—only two passed, resulting in a strict ten-percent pass rate. Andrew was the only candidate from New Zealand to succeed.

His success hinged on a remarkable instance of divine preparation. During the exam's long-case evaluation, Andrew was tasked with diagnosing a rare condition in a patient he had never met. Months prior, the Lord had led him to read and memorize a series of complex, cutting-edge medical cases published across the world in journals like the New England Journal of Medicine. The patient's exact condition happened to be one of the cases he had memorized.

The examining doctor was so astonished by Andrew's precise, instant diagnosis that he suspected Andrew had seen the patient beforehand. After checking with the patient—who confirmed they had never met—the examiner was left stunned. Giving all glory to the Lord, Andrew recognized that his success was entirely the result of following divine instruction to absorb those specific medical texts.

Following this achievement, Andrew stepped into an even higher role as chief resident (or senior resident) to the dean of the medical school. In this capacity, he faced a delicate medical situation when the dean’s own daughter fell ill. When Andrew diagnosed a condition requiring surgery, the dean initially disagreed. However, bringing in an older, highly respected chief of surgery confirmed Andrew's exact clinical findings and x-ray interpretation, leading to successful surgery and proving once again the wisdom of the medical principle that a physician should never personally manage the medical care of their own immediate family.

Soon after, Andrew was selected as the first New Zealand recipient of a Wellcome Research Fellowship, opening the door for postgraduate research in experimental virology with a professor in Sheffield, England.

The journey to England was an adventure in its own right. Securing passage on a cargo ship for a nominal fee of two shillings and sixpence, Andrew agreed to serve as the ship's doctor onboard for the crew and ten passengers. The thirty-day voyage from New Zealand around the globe was far from uneventful. Andrew found himself managing serious medical emergencies mid-ocean, including a sailor who dove into an empty ship swimming pool and fractured his neck, a patient with acute appendicitis, and another with a broken bone.

Recognizing that the patients required immediate hospital care, Andrew coordinated with the captain to stop at Curaçao—a Dutch island near the northern South American peninsula. As the ship refueled, Andrew safely transferred his patients into waiting ambulances at the local hospital, returning to the vessel just an hour before departure. The tight turnaround was essential, as the captain was racing to break a speed record transporting a massive cargo of half a million frozen sheep from New Zealand to England.

Upon arriving in Sheffield, Andrew's reputation preceded him. A placement manager in London, having reviewed his credentials, contacted him to offer top-tier positions anywhere in London, noting he had never seen such glowing recommendations for a single candidate. Faithful to his path, Andrew politely declined, choosing instead to honor his commitment to the Sheffield research fellowship.

During his time in Sheffield, Andrew conducted extensive patient, laboratory, and isolation studies on new animal organ cultures, successfully isolating different viruses. His work culminated in writing and publishing two separate papers by himself in the British Medical Journal—an extraordinary feat for a single researcher.

Yet, as doors of opportunity swung wide open across the medical field, Andrew consistently deflected all personal praise. Looking back at the exams, the fellowship, the sea voyage, and the published papers, he steadfastly maintained that his journey was not a testament to his own abilities, but to the unwavering faithfulness of the Father to anyone with a willing heart to please Him.

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?"

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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.