Interview Two: E. Wesley Ely

E. Wesley Ely, M.D., (Tulane ’85) is a practicing physician, as well as a researcher and lecturer on pulmonary and critical care, at Vanderbilt University’s medical center. A former Eminent Archon, Ely completed one of his many Ironman competitions in 2006 and dedicated it to the memory of a friend who died of cystic fibrosis.

I joined this Fraternity because I wanted to draw on the strength of some great friends towards becoming a better person.

During my time at Tulane, I decided I wanted to be a physician. I wanted to improve the lives of people I would otherwise never meet.

There’s a triple approach to my life in medicine. I help people with their medical problems as a physician. I teach medical students and residents. And I do research.

In the ICU, it’s either help someone get better or help them have a good death.

It’s rewarding to see brothers come out of medical school and to be able to teach them how to become the best doctors they can become.

“The True Gentleman” encompasses all the concepts I need as a physician. It’s a constant reminder never to take myself too seriously, to know that I’m humbled by all the things I don’t know and to know that I have to keep my ideals as my guideposts.

It’s easy to get off-track in life.

If you keep the truths and the virtues in front of you, by the grace of your brothers, your family and your God, you can make decisions that can help you become a better dad, a better husband, a better doctor.

My faith is the driving force. It’s disappointing when I don’t adhere to what that tells me to do.

In college, it’s about the brotherhood, those incredible life experiences. But once you make a commitment to your wife, you have to re-gear your thinking to make sure you become the right guy for her.

I’ve been married 20 years. On my 20th anniversary, we went fishing for salmon in Alaska.

Every day is a gift not earned, but given.

Death is not a tragedy. It’s a transition. If you think that there’s no afterlife, then you might see life as pointless.

I get more from patients than they’ve ever gotten from me.

There was a woman who was dying of lung cancer. She had divorced her husband, but she told me she still loved him. I asked what, if she still loved this person, broke them up. She gave me a crisp answer: “What happens to any relationship? We didn’t take care of it.”

It’s like the story in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The point is that you put the big rocks in first. The solid foundations of your life, time with God, time with family, time with friends are all first.

I had a lung-transplant patient. The surgery was a success, and he eventually went parachuting and rock climbing. Years later, I was on a podium in San Diego giving a speech when his wife called and said that he was dying. I left the conference and got back here to Vanderbilt to his bedside. He died ten minutes after I arrived. To me, that was putting the big rocks first. It was more important than giving a lecture to other doctors.

In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis asks a simple question: “If you knew that the bus you were on was going to heaven, why would you get off?”

People get angry with God, they ask why God did something to them. God didn’t do that to them. He’s here going through the trials with them.

In college, I crashed a car. Drunk. We didn’t get in any legal trouble, but afterwards I knew that God was speaking to me. That was a fire I had to go through. My daughter fell off a diving board and nearly died. That was another fire for me. But that fire refines us. Be thankful for it.

Like days, our kids are gifted to us. They’re on loan.

As soon as I get a notion that I am in charge of my life, the freer I am.

Our house burned to the ground at Christmas one year, and that was a great lesson for me. Total detachment from material things. The temptation is to look at these bad things with resentment. But I look at them in the opposite way. I say “thank you.”

The rich man is not the one who has the most, but who needs the least.

You’ve got to challenge yourself. You’ve got to let your soul grow.

We owe more because we’ve been given more. The Fraternity gives us such incredible experiences. So we owe more back to those around us.

I feel like my life is too comfortable. I look at my patients and see the pain they’re going through, so I put myself in a circumstance where I have time to think and pray in the midst of pain. And that brings clarity.

Each of us has to find out what our own balance is.

As I’m walking around every day, I hear my mentors whispering in my ears. They tell me to live in the present.

As brothers, we have to make sure we help each other grow.

Realize you’re in a process of lifelong growth. This is way more than a game.

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