My desire to be a doctor.

 

My desire to be a doctor.

 

My first recollection of this was when I was about three or four years old. We were living in Rexburg. My parents had a wood burning stove. They took the stove pipe apart to clean it and I got one of the short pieces and put it on my head and picked up a broken magazine rack with a handle and said I am going to be a doctor. My mother was not too pleased because she had to clean all the soot out of my hair. 

 

I continued with my desire to be a doctor. When we were living in Denver my parents subscribed to  Life magazine. One issue was devoted to the process of becoming a doctor. It described the pre-medical training and what courses were required in medical school. I planned out my future to include those prerequisites. 

 

I was a newspaper carrier at this time for the Rocky Mountain News. They featured a small column featuring the carrier of the week. In that note I said I was going to BYU and planned to graduate from medical school in 1962. 

 

Before we left Denver my mother arranged for my brothers and me to get our patriarchal blessings. When I came out, I said , “I am going to be a doctor.” The patriarch said, “remember Laurence it is the sick that need the physician and not those who are well.” 

 

Through high school and at Weber college I took classes for pre-med. 

 

My parents did not want me to be a doctor. My Uncle Vernon was a doctor and was not active in the church. My grandparents Gee did not want me to be a doctor either. A doctor in Pocatello was inactive in the church. A doctor in Denver became inactive in the church. They encouraged me to become an engineer. 

 

When I was on my mission Elder Adam S. Bennion toured our mission and interviewed every missionary. In my interview I told him that I wanted to be a doctor, but my parents were reticent. He said devote your Sundays and Wednesday evenings to the Lord. He said that in the future there would be bishops, stake presidents and general authorities who would be doctors. 

 

I applied to a number of medical schools and was accepted to the University of Utah first, so I accepted. 

 

I graduated in 1962 as I had planned.

 

Of interest to note is my wife Alice’s patriarchal blessing states that her husband would have the power and great blessing of healing.  

 

Alice said that she did not want to marry a doctor.  I told her that she did not marry a doctor, but a medical student.

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