Q and A: Dr. Frederick Hoenke

Tell me about yourself:
I grew up first in Midland, Mich., and then attended high school in Ironton, Ohio on the Kentucky and West Virginia border. My undergraduate degree in biology was obtained at the University of Cincinnati, and I chose to stay there for my medical school training. Those eight years were outstanding academically and clinically for training. I married my lifelong partner Gayle Guenthner in 1982 after graduation and we moved to Marquette for my family medicine residency post medical school. This was a great decision, fine training, and a wonderful place to live. We moved then in 1985 to Alpena to do three years of National Health Service Corp medicine in partial payment for my medical school debt. At the end of those three years we moved back to Marquette where I joined the faculty of the Family Medicine Residency. I also did a one-year fellowship for teaching residents and medical students through Michigan State University College of Medicine while in practice. Not long after joining the faculty, I took on my first of numerous additional administrative jobs as medical director for the local practice, eventually for all the primary care practices, then for all the employed clinician practices which eventually numbered over 180 doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and counselors.

During this time, I remained a nearly full-time clinician as well. In 1992, I also obtained board certification in geriatric medicine, then in addiction medicine. I did obstetrics for over20 years and delivered perhaps 500babies. I did hospitalist medicine for my entire career until recently and taught medical students. I was the director of the Marquette General Hospital geriatric fellowship. Gayle eventually gave up her clinical, academic, and teaching positions as an RN/BSN as our family grew to eight children, and she homeschooled all to the 9th grade. I am terribly proud of her. Our children include a Mayo-trained emergency medicine physician, a West Point grad in chemical engineering who as a captain commanded the counter IED unit in Afghanistan (Airborne Combat Engineer) decorated with the bronze star—and is now post MBA at Duke in a civilian upper level management position—a masters level dietician, now physician assistant, in hospital cardiology, a nurse practitioner hospitalist at a regional referral hospital, a dental hygienist, a high school Spanish teacher who won a Fulbright Scholarship, and two college students still in education. Kudos to Gayle and homeschooling in a Catholic system. We are blessed with five grandchildren.

Did your faith impact your decision to go into medical care?
I grew up in an agnostic home, my mother was very negative toward organized religion. We did not attend church. My faith slowly found me over a number of years, and I was a physician for quite a few years before joining the Catholic Church. I gradually grew more dissatisfied with the lack of answers to the really big questions that science does not really provide. After witnessing in training a couple of abortions, it was crystal clear to me that this was biologically untenable and deep down, morally indefensible. That was a push towards the Church, which has never abandoned its stance on this matter. I decided, quite unbeknownst to me, to join the Church on the feast day of St. Monica. Of course, Gayle had been praying for this, so no coincidence that God worked this way on that day. Throughout our lives we have repeatedly witnessed the goodness of God. I even wrote the essay which I almost did not submit that propelled Marquette to winning the Kraft Hockeyville contest with two NHL teams playing a pre-season game at Lakeview and a very large amount of money for renovations. If that isn’t proof of God’s intervention, I don’t know what else to offer, because it certainly was not my writing.

Do you believe your faith impacts your care of patients as a practicing Catholic?
My faith is intertwined with my medical career. I know that God is there for me to draw on, and I try to take what He gives me into every encounter. There are many privileges to being a physician, these include the thousands of involvements I have had with dying patients, all the joys of births and cures, and the opportunity to try to bring comfort and hope in so many stressful and difficult situations that life brings to people. I pray for my patients. I have been a participant in many remarkable things, and patients have entrusted to me not only their lives and care, but the most personal of experiences, feelings, and events that have further opened my eyes and deepened my own faith. In the end, patients give doctors more than doctors give patients if the doctors are open to seeing this, it’s a hard thing to explain. I am now 45 years out from entering medical school, and every day I learn more.

Anything else you’d like to share?
With time and experience, life can bring clarity. The Church is intrinsic in my life, and my wife’s life, our faith is central. I pray that people embrace the faith and that evil is rejected. I do know that nothing shall prevail against the Church. We, of course, cannot lose, God is on our side.

To read this story and others in The U.P. Catholic, visit https://www.upcatholic.org/