He described his Big Brother role as “a very good experience. It's always good to feel that you've been able to help somebody else outside of medicine.”
An 'Internal Desire' to Help
Dr. Jerry Brewer is the product of humble beginnings, coming from a single-parent home with few amenities in the small city of Vernal, Utah. He said that at a very young age, he noticed that his mom was a very hard worker and service oriented. Dr. Brewer's desire to serve others was formulated during high school, when he helped organize a group of seven friends into a “Cookie Group,” which baked cookies and delivered them each Sunday to widows in town.
“We'd take them over to their houses and just sit and talk,” recalled Dr. Brewer, who finished his dermatology residency at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., in June 2008. “That experience was very satisfying, and I became interested in service toward others, especially elderly people. We had such a good experience that I still keep in touch with members of that group.”
As an undergraduate at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, he coordinated a group of volunteers who visited patients at a nearby state mental hospital. “Most of those people were elderly, too,” he said. “We would go mainly to be a friend to these people who [frequently] didn't have family and were isolated from society. We'd take them to church or to other activities.”
He also assisted his university peers as a rape-crisis volunteer, a post that required 40 hours of volunteer training and involved serving as an on-call advocate for rape victims when they presented to the hospital. Dr. Brewer got phone calls at all hours of the night during that stint. “There were a lot of different situations,” he said. “In some situations, I had to be ready to diffuse very irate fathers who were ready to go get a shotgun. Sometimes, I spent more time dealing with family members.”
The rape victims he helped often presented to the hospital “very depressed. They think it's their fault and most of the time, don't want to pursue charges,” said Dr. Brewer, who is beginning a Mohs fellowship this summer. “Some of the good you see is later, after helping victims get plugged into group therapy sessions as well as other services. It also was helpful to talk them through the value of getting all the services offered by the hospital, like the rape-crisis kit, in case they want to press charges at a future date.”
During medical school at Wayne State University, Detroit, he volunteered as a mentor to eight underprivileged youth in a Boy Scout program, serving as the committee chair of the troop he helped to form. Dr. Brewer organized and attended camp-outs and organized first-aid merit badge activities as well. The youth in his troop, “were energized at having a purpose,” he said. “You could see the benefits start to surface in the way they acted. They also started to influence their friends to behave better. Two of them ended up going to college and are currently active in church. I think it helped at least a few of those kids get on track to having a productive life in society.”
Dr. Brewer currently teaches Sunday school at a nearby state prison and, after he completes his Mohs fellowship, he intends to provide dermatologic care to needy people in South America on a volunteer basis. “There's a lot of skin cancer down there and a lot of poor people, too,” he said. “I've made three to four trips there in the past few years making a few ties. Once I get established, my hope is to make a few trips per year to South America as a volunteer, rendering service to people who might have worrisome skin cancers and be too poor to pursue medical care.”
He described his drive to help others as an “internal desire” to make a difference and to make good choices in life. “Seeing other people's lives change for the better because of my efforts is very satisfying. My motivation is to do my part in making the future a better place for me, my children, and others.”
Dr. Ernie Tan is seated with his wife, Philip, and Philip's mother, at a Big Brothers Big Sisters bowling fundraiser, which his children also attended (standing, left). Courtesy Dr. Ernie Tan
Dr. Jerry Brewer (center), and a success story from his troop, Dewon Haughton, attended a seminar by Dr. Ben Carson (left). Courtesy Dr. Jerry Brewer