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Dr. Tina, Medicine Woman
The American doctor who makes house calls—in Nigeria

by Linda Piepenbrink

About a year ago, after a Sunday night service at Glenfield Baptist Church near Chicago, Dr. Tina Slusher offered to zip up the coat of a three-and-a-half year old Nigerian girl named Buki (BOO-key). No chance. Buki wanted to close her own coat. Finally she succeeded, looking up with a big smile. It was quite an accomplishment for a tiny girl who'd had two surgeries just weeks earlier to repair crippling scoliosis (curvature of the spine) and a severe heart defect.

"Everything in her body is on the wrong side," says Dr. Tina. "Buki's heart, stomach, and spleen are flip-flopped and she has only one pumping heart chamber, instead of two." A soft-spoken pediatrician in intensive care at Rush Children's Hospital in Chicago, Dr. Tina also practices medicine four months a year in Africa.

She first met Buki as a six-month-old baby in 1996 in Ogbomoso (og-BOW-ma-shaw), Nigeria, while seeing clients in the outpatient clinic there. Buki's skin was blue, a sign of congenital heart disease. Without the benefit of x-rays or EKG tests, the doctor had to rely on her ears and a stethoscope to diagnose Buki's heart condition. It was clear Buki needed surgery that was unavailable in Nigeria to survive.

Her parents couldn't afford to help their daughter. Her mother, Florence, grinds spices for about 20 to 50 naira a day (one dollar equals about 100 naira), and her father, a trader, earns about the same. (By comparison, one egg costs about 10 naira; the price of a Coke is 15 naira).

Buki seemed to qualify for surgery in the States through the Rotary Club's Gift of Life program, which provides $5,000 toward the cost of one surgery, while Rush picks up the rest of the tab. So, Dr. Tina raised support for Buki's airfare and spread the word to pray for her health and safety.

In February, 1997, Buki arrived in Chicago, where it became clear she had a complex heart problem that would require multiple surgeries. The doctors considered sending her back home to die, but then decided to proceed with treatment. Since then, one surgery has turned into four, including scoliosis repair and a pending heart surgery.

"I believe God blinded our eyes to the extent of her defect at first, so she could receive the help she needed," Dr. Tina says. "He must have special reasons for allowing her to be one of very few kids chosen for the program." Though she's active and gaining weight, Buki isn't out of the woods yet—she needs to return to America for one more heart surgery.

"Her life could be long or short, but I believe God has a special mission for Buki. It's exciting to have a small part in that."

On a recent trip to Nigeria, Dr. Tina visited Buki and her mother's rural Christian church and was touched to watch Buki attempt to bow before the pastor (it's culturally appropriate to bow to elders there). "She can't bend from the waist so she holds onto a chair and bends her legs," she says.

Answering Africa's call
Dr. Tina has been interested in children and medicine since she was a child. "I played doctor all my life," says Dr. Tina, who has a twin brother, and a sister who's also a nurse. "My earliest boyfriend was a kid who had crutches. Whenever people got hurt, I always had to know what happened and what was being done for them."

She became a Christian at age nine after leaving a note on her mother's bed that said, "Mom, I need Jesus." Her introduction to missions came later, after she completed medical school. She took a two-week mission trip to Costa Rica with her church, which sparked an interest in long-term medical missions.

"I saw 1,400 to 1,600 kids in six and a half working days," says Dr. Tina, who served as the only physician while most of the team did construction work. "The kids literally lined up, without medical records, in a pastor's kitchen. I had no more than five minutes with each child, then sent them to an older woman who passed out pills from a makeshift pharmacy." The trip was helpful, but Dr. Tina desired more time for follow-up and one-on-one evangelism.

So, her pastor suggested she visit a little Methodist hospital in Nigeria. In February 1989, she went on her own to Methodist Maternity Hospital in Ikole-Ekiti and discovered she had lots to learn about African culture. "I made so many cultural boo-boos when I went there the first time," she recalls. "For instance, I wore slacks, which wasn't appropriate. But the people were quite forgiving because they knew I was ignorant about their culture."

While in Nigeria, she visited two large Baptist hospitals and ran into a doctor who'd worked with her in residency at Oklahoma Children's Memorial Hospital. He asked her to cover for him at Eku (ECK-oo) Baptist Hospital while he took language studies, so she took a leave of absence from her pediatric practice and went back to Nigeria for five months.

This time, she discovered a high incidence of newborn jaundice in Nigeria. Upon returning to the States she left her practice to do a fellowship in pediatric critical care at Dallas Children's Medical Center at Southwestern University of Texas. During the required year of research, she returned to Africa and worked at Tenwek Hospital, a 300-bed missions hospital in rural Kenya.

Her work load was heavy. Usually the only pediatrician on staff, she took care of 100 patients a day in the pediatric ward and nursery. Dr. Tina also taught medical students and residents from several countries, and squeezed in her own research. "I was pretty busy, but I enjoyed it," she says.

Grieving, offering hope
Upon her return to America, she began looking for a job when an unexpected call came from Rush Children's Hospital. "Chicago was not on my looking list," she points out. "I'm a country girl."

But when Rush was willing to negotiate an arrangement that allowed her to work eight months at Rush and four months in Africa, she agreed to join the staff. To compensate for her time away, she's on call more frequently than other physicians and receives less salary.

She has now been to Africa 12 times, usually filling in for career missionary doctors on furlough. Typically, her days are hectic. After her quiet time, she begins working at 7 a. m. and often returns after supper to work until 9 p. m. Despite her best efforts, she sees children die almost every day. "I ask a lot of Why, God?-questions," she says. "Why do you let this kid suffer like this? Why did you let this kid die?

"Those aren't the kind of questions you get answers to," she adds.

Nevertheless, she tries to comfort parents by telling them how much Jesus loves their children. Many people in southern Nigeria practice a superficial Christianity mixed with African traditional religion, but all the hospitals have full-time chaplaincy programs with daily evangelistic services. "Most of the doctors are comfortable praying with their patients. I also give blankets or stuffed toys to kids who are dying as a tangible reminder of Jesus' love and compassion."

Dr. Tina does most of her comforting during the dying process, because after a child dies in Nigeria, the parents are inconsolable. "To show their grief culturally, they wail, thrash, and roll on the ground," she explains. "Without speaking the language and being a part of the culture, I'm ineffective to help. It's hard to watch, but I've realized that you need to let people grieve in the ways they know how."

Why is Dr. Tina so committed? "I love kids, and I believe that medicine's one of the best ways to share the gospel and reach out to people," she says. "And I don't believe you can share the gospel if you aren't meeting other needs as well."

After Sunday worship on a recent trip to Nigeria, she and some of her medical students took blankets and toys (donated by American Christians) to children at Ogbomoso Hospital's nursery. "We were telling the mothers that Jesus loves them and their babies, and that people from American churches want them to know Jesus Christ personally."

That's when a Muslim woman, whose child had been very sick and was beginning to recover, spoke up in English. "How can you know Jesus? How can you be sure?"

Dr. Tina told her how to trust in Jesus alone for forgiveness and salvation, then brought in a chaplain who could also explain the gospel in Yoruba, and sent the mother home with tracts and a Yoruba Bible.

Working in Africa has changed Dr. Tina's perspective on what God expects from her. "I think of the song 'Freely, freely, you have received. Freely, freely give.' God has continued to impress on me how blessed we are in America. And to whom much is given, much is required," she says. "I've come to realize how important it is for us to be able to share our lives—and Jesus—with others."

Donations to Dr. Tina Slusher's ministry can be sent to Glenfield Baptist Church, 620 S. Lambert Road, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137, or Pikeville United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 311, Pikeville, KY 41502.

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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