Physician and current Liberty divinity student says pandemic opened eyes to the need for a faith influence in patients’ care

Throughout the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency medicine physician Dr. Carol Twyman (’16) saw the Lord work in incredible ways, reminding her of how medicine and faith go hand in hand.

Although she is just one medical professional, Twyman has made it her goal to begin to share her faith in all of her medical work. She had repeated opportunities to put her beliefs in action last year when the pandemic broke out.

“At that time, I was working as an in-patient hospitalist in critical care,” she said. “Within seven days of the pandemic happening, our clergy support were gone. Nationwide, they were pulled out of hospitals.”

To complicate matters, Twyman and her fellow medical team members in Minden, La., were facing an illness that few knew anything about.

“We had no idea what we were up against,” she said. “People were just suffering and dying and there was no paradigm for treating it, and then to lose our faith support was just so difficult. It was so hard not only for the patients, but for the staff.”

Twyman said that when she began to realize that, she started to share her strong faith in God with those around her in the hospital.

“I found myself not only leaning on my own faith, but also reaching out to the patients,” she said. “These patients were dying and they were dying alone. So yes, we prayed with patients, and we prayed with patients’ family members, and we had faith conversations. We couldn’t have made it through without our faith.”

Through this time of tragedy, Twyman is hopeful that the world will come to realize the biblical correlation between ministry and medicine.

“It was such an opportunity, an incredible opportunity to regain what I knew we always had. I knew it was always there so now experientially, I could see it actually happen but it took COVID to bring it about.”

During her years of practice in various types of medicine, the West Monroe, La., native said she was troubled by how faith and medicine did not appear to have the connection in today’s world that they did in the Bible times.

“I was seeing stuff in my practice that I thought I really couldn’t explain outside of faith,” she said. “So I thought, ‘Let me go back (to school).’”

Having already received her Master of Divinity in 2016 through Liberty University’s online programs and the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity, Twyman decided to pursue her Ph.D. in Theology and Apologetics beginning in 2019.

“Liberty was just the perfect place to go,” she said. “There were lots of places I could have gone, but I definitely chose the right place. I wanted a strong biblical basis (and) the faculty here just stretch us and challenge us so much.”

With curiosity as her driving force, Twyman began to research the connection between faith and health and found that in the years of the early church, the medical world and faith went hand in hand as it was generally understood that although the doctors possessed talent in the medical injury, those giftings as well as the actual healing of a patient came from the Lord.

“I think the most fascinating place I’ve found connections is in church history,” she said. “There is a rich history in the faith and health connection.”

As an active church member, Twyman said she also began to notice the disconnect in how the local and universal church views the medical industry.

“There’s even a separation there,” she said. “There’s really not an interest in health or medicine. (Church goers) act as if that’s the physician or the psychologist’s part … but even as you go back before Jesus’ time, these two things were intimately intertwined.”

“After God’s magnificent parting of the Red Sea and rescue of His people, God characterized Himself as, ‘I am the Lord, who heals you,’ (Exodus 15:26). God has not changed. We are all called to carry His Gospel message of healing and redemption into our hurting and broken world, our schools, our workplaces, the local coffee shop, the gas station, wherever we are planted,” she added.

Due in part to her educational experiences prior to Liberty, Twyman said that the concept of medical professionals relying on the strength given by the Lord to assist in the healing process of others was new to her. But after beginning her research, she has seen how the slow fade progressed throughout the years, resulting in where the church and the medical world stand today.

“The separation did come, and it came throughout history,” she said. “And now, we have two totally separate disciplines that really don’t have anything to do together.”

Now, Twyman is in a small hospital in Bastrop, La., working in the emergency care department.

“I really love rural medicine,” she said. “So where I am now is in a very rural setting in northern Louisiana in a small hospital with seven beds in their ER department.”

As she looks to complete her Ph.D. in the next couple of years, Twyman said she will prioritize what is most important to her as she seeks to care for others’ spiritual and physical needs.

“I want to learn how to recognize the opportunities God brings my way, to listen to the lost and hurting, love them with the love of Christ, and pray for His kingdom and restoration to come into their lives, here, now, and this side of heaven, to His glory.”