CV NEWS FEED // Catholics entering the field of medicine are setting themselves up for a challenge that is almost like fighting in a war, according to the Catholic Medical Association (CMA). They will find themselves in “a battle against a culture of secularism, atheism, relativism, and scientism that pervades medical education in the United States,” the CMA states.
That’s why the CMA calls its weeklong summer program for medical students a “boot camp.”
The 13th annual CMA Boot Camp will take place June 22-29 at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois. The deadline to apply is June 1.
In an April 11 phone interview with CatholicVote, CMA Boot Camp Chair Dr. David Chen described the importance of providing pro-life physicians with the resources they need.
“Without pro-life physicians,” he said, there will be “no pro-life medicine in America.”
A graduate of the University of Rochester’s BA/MD medical school program, Chen is a psychiatrist and a third order Dominican. He also holds a Master of Science degree in bioethics from the University of Mary. Chen and three others will provide boot camp participants with spiritual direction.
The majority of Catholic medical students likely attend mainstream medical schools that have anti-life values, so there is a palpable, “immediate need for pro-life Catholic physician training,” Chen said.
Dr. Frank McNesby started the boot camp in 2012 with this urgent need in mind, Chen said. At first, the training mainly focused on abortion and euthanasia. Thirteen years later, medical professionals’ bioethics opponents also include in vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, and issues related to gender and sexuality. Consequently, the CMA Boot Camp team has spent almost two years revamping the boot camp’s curriculum to help medical students tackle these new topics.
Chen said that the medical environment can be hostile to Catholic medical students. Sharing an anecdote from the 2024 Boot Camp, Chen said that during an icebreaker, students were asked to talk about where they face struggles on campus. Chen described the stories that they shared as “heartbreaking,” explaining that some students had professors or medical school deans who encouraged learning how to commit abortions, and another experienced retaliation for objecting to pro-“transgender” medical practices.
Amid the difficult field they are stepping into, the Boot Camp provides a centralized place for Catholic medical students to lift one another up.
“Our task at the bootcamp is really to bring together a community of students where they can provide each other [with] peer support,” Chen said.
CMA also aims for the Boot Camp to provide intensive and cutting-edge training for the 60% of Catholic medical students who go to secular schools, Chen said, so that they can “become beacons of light in that darkness, and be able to help not only sustain pro-life medicine in that community,” but also to encourage friends in pro-life medicine.
A snapshot of the Boot Camp’s week
Presentations from Catholic subject matter experts, Marian spirituality, and Eucharistic devotion are incorporated throughout the week.
Monday, the first day of the camp, students orient their main focus on love of Jesus. They receive the spiritual nourishment of Mass, Confession, spiritual direction, and praying the rosary.
With this foundation, students spend Tuesday learning about the Catholic view of the human person. They become familiar with philosophical tools that will be essential when covering the topics for the rest of the week. Wednesday’s main focus is beginning-of-life issues, such as abortion, IVF, contraception, and fertility.
Philosophy professor and St. Pope John Paul II scholar Dr. Peter Colosi will make a presentation on Tuesday, and Dr. Marguerite Duane, executive director of FACTS About Fertility, will present on Wednesday. John Di Camillo, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, will make presentations on both days.
Thursday’s classes will cover end-of-life topics such as euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and brain death. In recent years, the definition, evaluation, and ethics regarding brain death have become subjects of intense debate, particularly in the context of organ transplantation.
In a new addition to the program, Friday is entirely focused on gender, sexuality, and issues related to “transgenderism.” Colosi will address these topics through the Catholic view of the human person presented by St. Pope John Paul II.
Concluding the camp on Saturday, presenters will address topics such as conscience rights, legal issues, and Catholic leadership, Chen said.
The value of community and spiritual support as they set out
By the end of the week, past classes of students have formed a strong community, he explained. The group elects a liaison between CMA and the students to receive future communications and resources from CMA.
After Boot Camp, students often keep in touch and look to each other for advice and support, Chen said. Many who have more experience help mentor those who are newer to the field, and some students return to the camp for a second year. They often become like a “big brother” or a “big sister” to new students, Chen said.
CMA also helps students find local spiritual directors. Chen emphasized that spiritual direction is crucially helpful in the medical field.
“I fundamentally believe that medicine needs to be practiced where the provider has a spiritual director,” Chen said, “where they can actually tap into – whether it be like myself, Dominican spirituality, or whether it be Ignatian, or Franciscan or Carmelite – whichever spirituality that Our Lord calls them to.”
Cultivating this needs to be a part of their medical practice, he urged.
“Because we’re not just battling [an issue] related to materiality of the body,” he said. “The human person is a body-soul composite. So then, the treatment of the whole person requires an understanding of the soul and the spirit.”
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