'The strength of many serving together'
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"When we work together cooperatively to help others, we can accomplish anything," President Thomas S. Monson told a gathering of LDS physicians April 1 in Salt Lake City.
"When we do so, we eliminate the weakness of one person standing alone and substitute the strength of many serving together. While we may not be able to do everything for everyone, we can surely do something for someone."
During his address to a meeting of Collegium Aesculapium in the Wyndham Hotel, where he received the organization's Distinguished Humanitarian Award, President Monson said: "As I look upon you, I think of the noble service you render, ofttimes without a fee and, in certain instances, making the difference between life or death. I believe you will never know the full effect of many of the services you render in a variety of situations."
President Monson, first counselor in the First Presidency, shared heartwarming accounts — "with the outcome known fully only to our Heavenly Father" — of people throughout the world whose lives have been bettered through the compassionate service of LDS physicians and other medical practitioners. Among those several accounts were the following four:
He recalled how, in August 1990, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve brought to his office a young boy, Evgeny Christov, from Bulgaria, who had just come from Primary Children's Medical Center following his recovery from urological surgery. As there was no doctor in Bulgaria who could perform the surgery, Elder Nelson had arranged for the boy, the son of an official with the Bulgarian government, to come to Salt Lake City.
While speaking with the boy in his office, President Monson told him how brave he was to come a long distance to undergo this difficult surgery. Wanting to give the boy a souvenir of their visit, President Monson thought of a commemorative medallion he had received from then-BYU President Rex Lee's inauguration.
"I took the box from my drawer, and through the interpreter, told Evgeny that I wanted him to have this medal for bravery. As he opened the box and saw the medallion, his eyes lit up and he smiled broadly."
Continuing, President Monson spoke of J. Vernon Monson, who in the late 1960s was serving as president of the Rarotonga Mission in the Cook Islands. Seeing a need for an eye specialist and eye surgeon, he contacted his nephew, Dr. Odeen Manning, an ophthalmologist, who agreed to go to the island and lend his services and abilities — despite the conditions, which included receiving no remuneration, paying his own expenses and taking along his own surgical instruments.
"All in all, 284 patients were examined, with most being fitted or refitted for glasses. There were 53 patients who had serious eye operations, 20 of whom were members of the Church."
President Monson spoke also of those serving closer to home, including Dr. Ralph Montgomery, a prominent dentist in Salt Lake City who helped organize the Salt Lake Donated Dental Services, where dentists in the valley could donate their time and talents in behalf of the homeless and others.
For his next example, President Monson shared an incident involving "extensive communications between two nations." A young man in Brazil, Ricardo Santana, whose family had joined the Church when he was a boy, and who had a bright future after graduating from Brazil's equivalent of West Point, was injured in an automobile accident in 1987.
When a severe fracture of his femur did not heal properly and became infected, doctors determined the leg should be amputated. Ricardo went to local Church leaders and received a blessing. Upon hearing about the situation, Elder Dallas N. Archibald of the Seventy, at the time serving in the area presidency, made an attempt to find out if more could be done, while being "very careful not to criticize the Brazilian doctors." He and Elder Helio da Rocha Camargo, who also served in the area presidency, got Ricardo's medical records in the hands of U.S. physicians, one of whom referred the case to Dr. Eric Johnson at the UCLA Medical Center, who was doing bone regeneration research. Eventually, in August 1989, Ricardo went to Los Angeles where surgery was performed. Later, Dr. Johnson, a Church member, re-explored the thigh for residual infection and found "no evidence of infection anywhere in the leg, no evidence of acute inflammation."
The doctor later said, "The course of healing of Brother Santana's left leg was beyond the expertise that I possess and was of a divine nature."
Today, Richard Santana lives in Brazil with his wife, Marisa, daughter of Elder Helvecio Martins, a former member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy.
In his closing remarks, President Monson said: "When men and women such as you lay aside the frantic schedules you are required to keep and the many demands of your profession to reach out in the types of endeavors I have highlighted today, you will discover a resurgence of your desire to help, and in each instance you will realize that you have returned with no diminution of ability but with a heart filled with gratitude, for you will find you have been on the Lord's errand and have been the beneficiary of His help and blessings."
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