Vocation Stories – Sister Pat Elder, D.C.

In 1960 I spent my tenth year as a Daughter of Charity in the enchanting city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, becoming a nurse-midwife.  My patients were Hispanic women who had no other resources for care during pregnancy and birth. 

During that year I became “hooked” or as St. Vincent might say, “evangelized by the poor.” 

This ministry, which I call my “second sisterhood”, has been a sustaining, nourishing and challenging force in my life. 

To see the parents’ faces on hearing the baby’s heartbeat for the first time, or on seeing the tiny baby on the sonogram and later to receive that newborn into this world and place the babe in mother’s waiting arms in a truly spiritual and exhilarating experience. 

Many years later in full time health care governance work, I am part of a system whose goal is access to care for all and I find time to volunteer in giving prenatal care for women who are financially poor.  I do this for my soul.

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