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My name is Mary As a child, Mary Groda-Lewis was labeled retarded. During her teenage years, she was considered incorrigible and spent years in reformatories.
"A doctor is just a role I'm playing,"
says a woman who overcame great
odds to find her place in lifeBy Nancy Arcayna
narcayna@starbulletin.comHer story became the subject of a 1984 CBS-TV movie starring Kristy McNichol. It wouldn't have been a story at all if Groda-Lewis hadn't overcome her demons to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor.
The film dealt with Groda-Lewis' struggle to overcome dyslexia, the stroke she suffered during the birth of her second child and the difficulties she encountered attaining her medical degree.
"I don't like to be called a doctor. My name is Mary, that's who I am. A doctor is just a role that I'm playing," said Groda-Lewis, who strongly believes that the title of "doctor" tends to isolate physicians from their patients.
"I like being a friend -- that's the greatest part about being a doctor. You get to help all sorts of people and touch their lives, bodies, heart and soul."
Groda-Lewis was born in San Antonio, the second oldest of seven kids, and grew up moving from place to place. She is now a family practitioner at Mililani Family Clinic and is on the staff at Wahiawa General Hospital.
"I wanted to expand my social base and start to understand other cultures," she said. "Hawaii seemed the place to do this. When the opportunity came to work here, especially in Wahiawa, where the sense of community is strong, I jumped at the chance.
"My desire to become a doctor came when I was a migrant farm worker. I would take care of all the poor, sick kids. I became like a little old mother hen. When you watch someone die of diphtheria or watch someone die of diarrhea or hold a dying child in your arms, and you are only 7 years old, it makes quite an impact."
That was about 40 years ago, and while she believed at the time that there had to be a better way to provide health care, "not much has changed today," she said. "It's actually gotten a whole lot worse if you're an uninsured person."
Groda-Lewis suffered from dyslexia but was not diagnosed until she was in her teens.
"When you are traveling with crops, you don't go to school much," she said. "I'd be in a school for about three weeks and then would be transferred to another one. I remember going to nine schools in one year. By the time my family finally settled down, I was really belligerent."
Groda-Lewis recalled attending the fifth grade at a missionary school in Texas. "We were studying King Arthur and the Round Table," she said. "I was looking out the window and saw a man going through the garbage, looking for something to eat. When the teacher called on me, I told her, 'You are never going to get me to care about King Arthur until you tell me why we allow that to happen.'"
She was sent to the principal's office.
During her early teen years, a four-year stint in a reformatory came after Groda-Lewis and her boyfriend stole a car and led the police on a high-speed chase. "What can I say? ... I was with the wrong guy," she said. "We stole the first car, and after that it was easy. Once a line is crossed, you experience a lot of emotional conflict.
"Eventually we got caught and had to face the consequences. My younger sister felt as if our family had been cheated. There was always an emptiness after I was removed from the home."
Groda-Lewis' life changed when a counselor helped her enter a program for troubled teenagers. That's when teachers discovered she had dyslexia, and she overcame the difficulties that had made reading and writing so hard.
Within two years, Groda-Lewis gave birth to a daughter and a son. During the birth of her son, she suffered cardiac arrest, seizures and a stroke. She was hospitalized for eight months and needed to learn to walk and speak again. Once she recovered, she started attending college in Oregon, where she met her husband, David Lewis.
Lewis was a journalist who had served in Vietnam. They would eventually raise 12 foster children, all troubled teens when they began living with the couple.
He encouraged Groda-Lewis to apply for medical school and, after applying to 15, she was accepted at Albany Medical College in New York. She graduated four years later with honors.
She ran a private practice for 14 years in Twin Falls, Idaho, before moving to Hawaii.
"I take care of patients from birth to death," she said. "Being a family doctor is one of the hardest roles in medicine. You can walk from one room to another and deal with totally different problems. It really takes a person who is diverse."
In her spare time, Groda-Lewis enjoys making porcelain dolls, theater, needlepoint and just being in the outdoors. She has also written a book, called "Strokes of the Soul," which she is trying to get published.
"It's all about life," she said. "I talk about what it's like to be a doctor ... how amazing it is to watch a woman give birth and be allowed to participate in the intimacy of the three, the mother, father and child; the feelings of holding a person's hand when they are dying and what essence that gives you."
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