By Melanie Davis
A local physician was invited to be a keynote speaker
at the World Burn Congress last week, a four-day conference
which serves as a support network for burn survivors.
From homeless to physician,
Dr. Leslie Smith gives credit to the people who helped
her along the way.
Photo by Mark Mitchell |
For Dr. Leslie Smith the invitation to speak
was symbolic of her life coming full circle, from burn patient
to survivor, from homeless to physician.
The World Burn Congress was held at the Raleigh Convention
Center, built on the site of the former civic center –
the very place Smith had slept on the benches or been chased
off by police in the mid-1980’s .
The circle begins in 1985 when Smith, 24 at the time, was
burned in a fire and spent three months in the Jaycee Burn
Center in Chapel Hill. Smith suffered severe burns on 33
percent of her body. Upon discharge, she had nowhere to
go. A lawyer of the hospital drove her to the Raleigh Rescue
Mission shelter.
Smith had intended to go to the Social Services office for
assistance with food, bandages and other necessities. The
office was across town from the shelter and she remained
bandaged from neck to ankle. Another person at the shelter
told her a place, Urban Ministries, could provide city bus
tickets to the first 25 people per day.
Early the next morning, Smith walked about one mile to the
ministries office. The director, Sister Helen Wright, spoke
to her directly, stepped out of the office, and returned
with vouchers to grocery stores, pharmacies, trailway tickets
to return to the Chapel Hill burn center, and city bus tickets.
Wright also made an appointment with an adult protective
services case manager to meet with Smith. Her physical therapy
continued through the burn center.
For the next two years, Smith remained homeless, staying
in shelters, on the streets, temporary group homes and various
other living situations. The nights in shelters were limited
to two days at the rescue mission and seven days at the
Salvation Army within a 30-day period.
“You played the weather game. If it was going to be
bad, you stayed at the shelter. If it wasn’t, you slept
someplace in downtown Raleigh,” Smith said.
One of her most memorable experiences came near the end
of her homelessness. As she was waiting in line for a bed
at the shelter, she felt very faint and had to sit down
on a curb. She weighed only 69 pounds because of malnutrition
and her burns weren’t healing well. The skin graphs
were not taking due to the lack of nutrition.
As she sat down, a man also stepped out of line to ask her
what was wrong. She explained and he responded with “I’ll
fix it.” He returned a few moments later with a dollar
and some change for her to buy food.
“It was the sweetest thing. Here is this person who
has as little as I did, yet he panhandled to get me something
to eat,” Smith said.
Together they walked across the street and bought a bag
of potato chips and a Sprite and shared the meal.
Shortly thereafter, Smith was admitted to a nursing home.
Five years since the burn, Smith still had open wounds.
Muscle and skin contracture had limited her movement, particularly
her left arm. The skin and scarring had caused a negative
contracture, meaning her arm would not go to her side. She
had to rest her left hand on her right shoulder. Smith was
in and out of wheelchair due to frequent falls.
While at the nursing home, eating three meals a day strengthened
Smith and she began to heal. A social network formed with
the women of the nursing staff, giving Smith additional
comfort she hadn’t found while living on the streets.
In 1990, an independent living program helped Smith get
into an apartment of her own.
She was active in a group, Handicapped Encounter Christ.
While on a retreat with the group, Smith met a women who
had a Phd in pharmacology, an interest of Smith’s.
The connection put her in contact with Dr. John Drake of
the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
In October of 1990, he set up an interview to meet Smith
about the possibility of volunteering in the research department.
Smith’s nursing assistant, who helped her bathe, had
called in sick. “It was the first time I bathed on
my own,” she said. “It made me realize there were
things I could do that I hadn’t tried to do.”
She was given a research position NIEHS. The position opened
up a world of possibilities for Smith. During a thunderstorm,
the electricity went out in the building. The lab was on
the seventh floor and the elevators weren’t working.
“I panicked, thinking what if I got stuck in a burning
building,” she said.
Immediately, Smith restarted her physical therapy and eventually
quit using a wheelchair altogether and became strong enough
to tackle stairs.
It was during her time at NIEHS, she found a plastic surgeon
to perform the surgery to release the skin contracture in
her shoulder. Seven years after she had been burned, Smith
regained her physical movement.
She began taking summer classes at N.C. State to better
understand the research she was conducting. Smith then decided
to go all the way and talked to her vocational rehabilitation
therapist about funding. A scholarship was available through
the GlaxoWelcome company for those who had overcome adversity.
She applied for and received the scholarship, full funding
for her undergraduate studies.
During her acceptance speech she mentioned she wanted to
seek a Phd from Duke University. One of the members of the
scholarship selection committee was Janet Dickerson, vice
president of academic affairs at Duke. Before long, Smith
graduated with a biochemistry degree from Duke.
Throughout her studies, she had remained active with the
Handicapped Encounter Christ group. As a graduation present,
a friend in the group gave Smith a rafting trip. It was
something she had always wanted to do, but had previously
been physically limited. Her friend was unable to go, but
Smith went away.
She made a good friend on the trip, Hank Cantrell. They
had driven together for the rafting trip and one week later,
he asked her out. It was the first time since the fire,
she had been asked out on a date. As Smith explained, burn
patients lose a sense of self-image and develop a fear of
their scars. Though, she didn’t go into detail about
the date, she and Cantrell remain close friends.
After graduation, her physician wanted to speak to Smith
about the possibility of medical school. She was initially
completely against the idea. Smith saw a social class separation
between the poor and homeless and physicians. “I had
grown to despise the rich because I couldn’t get my
muscle contracture released,” she said. “No plastic
surgeon wanted a homeless person in their office.”
Regardless of her opinion, she agreed to speak with her
physician about medical school in exchange for his assistance
with a fundraiser for the HEC group.
“He made a good argument by saying who better to change
the health care system than a person who has walked through
it,” she said.
She applied and received a full scholarship to East Carolina
University medical school. She completed her residency in
Louisville, Ky, before returning to North Carolina.
“I feel like I have an obligation to North Carolina
because they are the ones who picked me up when I do down
and put me back together,” Smith said.
Smith became hospitalist at Watauga Medical Center in 2006,
the doctor on call for in-patients and the intensive care
unit. She worked there for two years before joining Primedical
Healthcare on the N.C. 105 Extension in Boone in August.
Smith also serves as medical director for the farm workers
clinic at Cannon Memorial Hospital and medical director
of the Appalachian District Regional Health Department.
When she was in Raleigh last week at the World Burn Congress,
she visited the rescue mission and Sister Wright. The conference
was held in conjunction with the N.C. Firefighters barbecue
cook-off. She and the Raleigh fire marshal delivered the
leftover eight trays of chicken and pork to the mission.
“Going from homelessness to being a physician was not
something I did on my own,” Smith said. “It was
a whole bunch of people stepping in and picking me up when
I fell down, providing food and shelter and motivating me
to get back in school and believe in myself again.”
“I find it mind boggling what those little acts of
kindness have done to change my life.”
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