First impressions…
not always what you plan!
The young woman looked in the mirror of her sporty automobile and fluffed out her long hair with her fingers before she opened the door and headed to her first day on her new job.
But just as she got out of her car she heard cries for help coming from across the street. “Is there a doctor around?” came the desperate call.
Well, she was a doctor. This was her first job out of her residency. And she was heading into a hospital to take a new step in her career.
She ran across the street to find that a man had collapsed. She dropped down next to him and began CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation). The beautiful tresses of her hair fell forward across his face as she continued with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But as she did, he threw up! And her lovely hair was now covered in vomit!
As she kept working on the man, the staff of the hospital came running over. And this is how Janis Amatuzio, M.D., pathologist, met the other doctors at the Cannon Falls, MN hospital back in 1983.
Janis has been in forensic medicine for almost 25 years. Presently a coroner, she provides forensic pathology services for several counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She is “an internationally recognized authority in forensic medicine…”
Janis was a guest lecturer at the Cannon Falls library. She has written books about the stories she has heard in her role as a coroner. These have been related by “grieving family members, patients near death, police officers, clergy, and colleagues.”
Janis encourages you to consider these experiences as a “common phenomenon”. She believes these stories are gifts to us to teach us.
One story was about Greg, a 22 year old man who was killed in a car crash. Some weeks after the accident, Janis was contacted by his mother, Mary, who was a nurse and wanted to know more of the details. After getting the information, Mary told Janis about something strange that had happened.
When her son was young they had a babysitter, Sheila, who had moved from Minnesota to California. As Mary’s family grew up they hadn’t had much contact with her.
But on the night Greg died, Sheila “was awakened by a loud …voice and she saw Greg standing next to her.” Three nights later this happened again. Greg said, “Tell my mom I am fine…” And then she saw another presence with him, his grandmother Verne, who had died before he was born.
Sheila thought she’d better write Greg’s mom. And Mary said there was a similar experience by Greg’s girlfriend who had awakened to see him at the foot of her bed and he told her he was fine.
Janis explained that it is experiences like these that help you shift your level of awareness from hope to belief to knowing.
She continued, “What we know we create… what we create we experience… what we experience, we become.”
Janis encouraged the audience that you can learn to trust yourself and realize that you already “know”.
