Inspired by care her husband received from Baylor trainees, Patricia Johnson gives back
When Jim Johnson finally agreed to go to the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center (MEDVAMC) for some persistent health issues, it was his wife, Pat, who talked him into it. Like many veterans of his generation, he worried that asking for care meant asking for charity.
Mrs. Johnson told her husband: “If my taxes are going to go to help people, it’s going to go to somebody who has worked as hard as you.”
Mr. Johnson, a tall, left-handed pitcher from the East Texas sawmill town of Diboll, was drafted into the Navy and served as a flight engineer at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi before two years of sea duty aboard the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. As plane captain for the ship’s carrier onboard delivery aircraft, he ferried mail to the ship daily, working inches from a roaring engine. The job cost him much of his hearing.
“But he loved the service. He loved protecting our country,” his wife said.
At MEDVAMC, that service was honored. Audiology fitted him with hearing aids and, eventually, two cochlear implants. Hematology diagnosed him with Factor V Leiden, the clotting disorder behind years of mysterious blood clots. Cardiology, the wound clinic and home care followed. Staff greeted him by name. And at nearly every appointment, the Johnsons met Baylor College of Medicine residents and fellows pursuing their clinical training.
“We had so many interns that helped us, and I know it was hard,” Mrs. Johnson said. A retired Houston elementary music teacher, she couldn’t resist asking the young physicians about how they chose their path.
When Mr. Johnson died in February, Mrs. Johnson knew right away how to honor him and the beautiful life they had built together. She established the James Richard Johnson and Patricia Neff Johnson Memorial Scholarship at Baylor, a needs-based scholarship with a preference for students interested in hematology and oncology and audiology.
She hopes the scholarship recipients carry a simple but profound truth.
“I want the interns to realize that people are depending on them to get well,” she said. “Being a doctor is not just a job. The caring part is the most important part.”
Mr. Johnson served his country. The MEDVAMC’s clinicians and Baylor’s trainees served him. Mrs. Johnson, who served as her husband’s ears through years of his appointments, sees the scholarship as the next link in that chain.
“I want my husband’s memory to be associated with something that helps people, that makes things easier for them. That’s what life is all about.”
