Heritage Snapshot: Part 91

In a look back at the first globe-trotting heart surgery team, co-founder C. Joan Coggin, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist, was quoted by Penny Estes Wheeler to be a “Woman of Spirit.” “I [Joan Coggin] was working in a crowded cardiac clinic [in Saudia Arabia] when I looked toward the back and saw a tall, handsome young man wending his way forward. He was sort of pushing people gently aside, bouncing toward me. He gave me this huge smile and I smiled back and he hugged and kissed me, and so I hugged right back, thinking, 'who is this boy?' He was broad-shouldered, very handsome and I thought, ‘Well, eventually I’m going to have to find out who he is but until then it’s all very pleasant.’ “Finally, he could see that I was puzzled and so he said to me, “Mafi zehn.” At that the hugging and kissing started all over again. “We’d operated on him 10 years before when he was about 6 years old. He was a darling child. His father was in the military and came to see him when he could but his mother lived quite far away and could not visit, so we spent a lot of time with him. “Many of the children there had bad teeth as they ate so many sweets. He had a very serious heart disease and his baby teeth were so decayed that we had them all pulled for fear they would cause an infection. “Well, the Arabic word for teeth is zehn and mafi is the word for nothing. My Arabic is limited to just a few words and so I’d tease him and say, “Mafi zehn,” which means “nothing teeth.” It’s not even good Arabic but he knew what I meant. I was trying to learn the alphabet from some little Arabic books and I’d sit with him at night and he’d laugh at my pronunciation and I’d teach him a few English words and he would teach me. You can see that this kid was a pet. “When the surgeons got into his chest, it was far worse than anyone thought. They literally reconstructed his heart. But then we couldn’t get him off the heart-lung machine. We were all terrified. His heart had to beat on its own and time was running out… I watched the futile efforts of our surgeons to get our young friend off the heart-lung machine. I was simply praying with every breath I took. “Someone woke our off-duty staff and they all got together and prayed for him, too. We all were praying continually. The clock ticked on. Finally our prayers turned the tide. We were able to make some changes in the chemistry and he came off the pump. He was desperately sick but he survived and went home. And this tall young man was the boy. “I looked at him and I thought, 'This is a perfect example of what it means to work together.' If only one person had not done their job right, he wouldn’t be here. And his life shows what it means to rely on God, for without the overruling power of the Lord, he would not be here now.” Coggin eventually became the Loma Linda University special assistant to the president for International Affairs and the Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center vice-president for Global Outreach. She has earned much international acclaim, including the Outstanding Woman of the Year in Sciences Award from the Los Angeles Museum of Science and Industry and the Republic of Vietnam’s highest distinction in the health sciences, the Golden Medal of Health. Living the life she has, she often has felt very close to God. “I know that I must rely on God," she said. "When you’re so far from home, so far from what is familiar, that is when you feel closest to God. I have seen a lot of suffering, of course, but I’ve seen a lot of miracles… I don’t understand suffering but I trust God and that is all that matters.”