Searching: A Black Physician’s Journey

By Orzie Henderson Jr. MD

A black boy abandoned by his father at ten and yearning to help his hardworking mother becomes untwisted after his religious  conversion to begin a journey  to become a physician and faces enlightenment, agnosticism, racism, and nihilism in search for a reason for being.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 6, 2025
• ISBN: 9798369437711

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SEARCHING

A BLACK PHYSICIAN’S JOURNEY

Orzie Henderson Jr.,MD

Copyright © 2025 by Orzie Henderson Jr.,MD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/03/2025

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

863766

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Letters to Jules

Chapter 2: Cagney’s Secret

Chapter 3: Encounters

Chapter 4: Dental School and L, S and A

Chapter 5: Changes

Chapter 6: At Last

Chapter 7: The Hospitals

Chapter 8: Regrouping

Chapter 9: Going Home

Chapter 10: Finishing and Trip to Spain

Chapter 11: Shoulder Surgery and Medical License

Chapter 12: General Practice

Chapter 13: The Times and Changes

Chapter 14: Marriage, Practice, and Finding a Residency

Chapter 15: The Perfect Landing

Chapter 16: Finishing

Chapter 17: Practice, Family, and Business

Chapter 18: New Jargon

Chapter 19: Reflections and Emotions

Chapter 20: The Big Three

Chapter 21: More Cases and Reflections

Chapter 22: China and Sickness

Chapter 23: Getting Old

Postscript

A black and white photo of a man smiling, showcasing his joyful expression and relaxed demeanor.

This is the third book by Orzie Henderson Jr.: a children’s book Work Easy in the Lion’s Mouth and Light in Winter (A Mama’s Prayer). He is a retired physician and volunteers in Nicaragua and the USA with Hope Clinic and Hope Clinic International. He lives in Saline, Michigan, and has four children.

I was sitting at my window watching the sparrows, then robins, cardinals, and blue jays, a black physician raised by a single mother emerging in a bewildering world. There are over 18,000 species of birds. As an undergraduate scientist, I studied the family Corvinae (crows, jays, and nutcrackers). I’m impressed by soaring eagles and migrating geese. I do take pigeons and sparrows for granted and appreciate hummingbirds, orioles, and hawks. The one mirroring me and my journey is the owl.

Two black and white photos featuring a man and a woman, each captured in a classic portrait style.

CHAPTER 1

LETTERS TO JULES

I

F I COULDN’T HELP MAMA,

I never wanted to see her again. It was on my mind. When I was fifteen, teachers thought I should quit school and work in a factory. It was 1958 and I could earn as much as a teacher. Mama refused. She said I always wanted to be a doctor, and I called these writings Letters to Jules (after my firstborn), but they are more and not for Julie’s eyes only but for you my fellow searchers—writing crystallizes things. Would be doctors too, should come, see through a father’s eyes into his thoughts and memories: Medicine, travel, the intellectual and spiritual life, racism, and the mystery of iniquity (evil). At birth, searching begins, and we are not always aware of who and where are we, what matters, and how do we get what we want? Where then can wisdom be found? See me walking and running into the twentieth century and stumbling into the next.

My journey began in Lilbourn, Missouri, but my first memories are of Atlantic City. We were a part of the migration fleeing Jim Crow and lynching and landing in Jersey, and I can feel the neighborhood and streets that inspired the Monopoly game. Everyone was Black like me and the whole racial chiasm would gradually come into view. We lived on the avenue having moved from apartment 5 a few blocks away to the row house at 1902 Garfield Avenue and could see the dark red brick of Indiana Avenue School from the porch. There were businesses on the corner and around the block. Down the avenue in the other direction was a store called Grandma’s and a train station where I was holding Mama’s hand and emerged from the crowded station holding someone else’s.

Black and white photo of a man wearing a navy uniform, standing confidently with a serious expression.

Years later, Daddy changed his name from Orzie to Ozzie, one of the many things I didn’t understand including his abandoning us, six children with one the way. Friends call me Orzie, Orz, or Junior; patients call me Dr. Henderson. I named my first son Orzie Douglas, OD for short after Doug Gavrilides his Greek godfather. There would always be someone to admire. I am a man, I would see on signs protesting those trying to keep us down. If you haven’t met your betters, you have lived a shallow life.

On my first day of kindergarten, a student entered with a note and whispered in the teacher’s ear. I reasoned this was my first job, and we were to transfer notes from one room to another. Thus, formal learning began. Your aunt Mamie was in another classroom, and I saw her picture with all black classmates. We lived with Uncle Luther and Aunt Nancy, my father’s older sister, who was lighter and almost orange with a gold tooth in the front. It was cozy and Daddy worked the lumberyards and Mama worked part-time at the hotel. I remember Mama’s blue uniform with white cuffs. I don’t recall White people at all.

Joe Louis won, and we poured into the streets. There was a war and blackouts to prevent the Japanese from bombing because we were on the coast. We smelled the ocean from the boardwalk and tasted saltwater taffy. Uncle Sam drafted Daddy into the navy, and he spent the war at sea. There was a parade when he returned. I remember the black soldier parading down Indiana Avenue. Some had injuries and lost limbs.

After a few years, we moved to Michigan where Daddy had another sister, and for more work, finally settlling in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at 120 Antoine Street near the tracks. It was colored except for a few Italians. The Italian boy Leo was the first white person I remember. Our landlord was religious and manly and looked like the cowboy Randolph Scott in the movies, except he was Black. His wife was a good cook, and when she made bread, we could smell the yeast and with honey and butter it was delicious.

Franklin grade school was over a viaduct. I liked it, especially recess and when the teacher read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. If we were bad, she wouldn’t read making me angry at the colored girls sabotaging story time. There were always books and stories. When me and your uncle Bill snuggled in bed during winter nights, sometimes fighting over the covers, I often concocted tales in which we were heroes. He nodded saying yes as he dozed.

My first book (without pictures) was Robin Hood and His Merry Men and green, and I closed with a bang, paused, reopened, and started over again. A few years later and after Daddy left, I told Mama I didn’t like school. She talked to the principal and changed me from Ms. Whitehead’s to Mr. Hauley’s, telling him I needed a man teacher. School was better after that. The principal had an Italian name and said he wished more parents would do that. Thinking about it now, I realize how smart Mama was. She only had a year of schooling, but she knew it was important. Stories, sports, and food were my early obsessions.

Let’s move along to before you were born to 1965, and night had fallen. I was in university and going back to Ann Arbor from Detroit. The train wouldn’t be leaving until 7:00 a.m., and I spent the night in the station, which was well-lit and safe. I wandered over to the bookstand and noticed A Sense of Where You Are by John McPhee about Bill Bradley. Bradley was the National Player of the Year, and in the 1966 NCAA basketball tournament and led his small Princeton team to third place nationally and became a ten-year pro with the New York Knicks championship teams and a three-term United States senator with an unsuccessful run for the presidency of the United States. A Sense of Where You Are tells how he was able to maneuver because he knew where he was, and he didn’t want to just be remembered for running around in short pants.

Well, we are on Earth amidst a galaxy of stars, the Milky Way, in the United States of America in the most privileged country the world has ever known. People die trying to get here: some on rafts or are smuggled or fly thousands of miles to have children born here for citizenship. We are the great experiment in a vast and rich land: Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Yes, there are inequalities. It may not be fair sometimes, and they might not always treat you well but there is opportunity and prosperity that may not last. In the history of mankind, life has been for the strong, the privileged, and the ruthless, yet our democracy struggles to find liberty and justice for all.

Every race has had successes, some more than others. This ship America is a noble idea despite genocide, slavery, ruthless individualism, prejudice, and racism, and we are all on that ship. If anyone is trying to drill holes, you must stop them. You don’t have to like everyone on board, but if it sinks, there will likely not be another. Those who kill, burn, destroy, and sow divisions, hatred, and fear are enemies of that idea be they on the left, right, or middle. Fear is the enemy when a nation is divided. The fearful do not appreciate the opposition and would push them into the sea. Where there is no free opposition, there is no democracy. Many Whites are frightened as non-Whites increase in power. Some Whites want to forget the unfair and bitter treatment of the past, and some Blacks are not forgiving and want their rights and more. Nelson Mandela understood that by supporting the South African Rugby team, he was saying we cared about what the opposition valued. He knew they were on the same ship. I don’t know if this ship will last and even if it is supposed to; civilizations come and go and like Camelot become legends or myths. Your generation didn’t fight the wars or escape concentration camps and Jim Crow. You are recipients of our blessings and curses.

At fourteen I was coming downstairs and heard Mama on the telephone begging the coal man. She was laid off from her job and asked him for a half-ton of coal that she could pay for later. It was winter, and she was desperate and begging in a way that only a single mother trying to keep seven kids warm could. Anyone with any manhood would give in. And he did.

I pounded the wall going upstairs. I decided I would take care of her so that she wouldn’t have to beg. She may have had to do similar things I don’t know, but I was inspired. I remember her coming home from the factory at night smelling of cigarette smoke, and she didn’t smoke. On Saturdays, she went to rummage sales, and we cleaned ourselves and the house to prepare for Sunday. She would not always attend the evening church service because she needed to rest for the coming week. I watched her closely; she was my hero.

I would have many inspirations. Some were pastors, coaches, or teachers. I would use the discouraging words of teachers and Black and White bullies to inspire me. Because I was taught to respect my elders, I got to know them and received their blessings and acknowledgment. Older people understand the reasons for living, how to treat others, and what lines not to cross away from home. In my journey, I read about people, some dead, not because it was entertaining but to fill spaces in my understanding. I realized that how I used my mind would help me get what I wanted. At times we need to be entertained. But when we fill our minds, we must ask if it will stay and inspire us or give us peace or courage. Our minds have great capacity, but we cannot pack in everything. It was a lesson I would learn.

Eisenhower became president, and there was a recession; Black folks said it always happened when the Republicans were in office. We went to relatives for rice and biscuits because there was no food at home. Mama wouldn’t come. My clothes weren’t as good as the kids next door and at school. I disliked the stares accompanying being poor (from White teachers or Black and White classmates). I figured they thought they were better than me. I didn’t want to go to hell because that was what the church said would happen if I stole, cheated, played with devil cards, drank alcohol, smoked, fornicated, and disobeyed. I didn’t want a White boss, and I expected fairness from the policemen, firemen, teachers, and coaches, except for in the South (which was another country).

My peers were healthy and not burdened with diabetes, sickle cell, or asthma (these are not unconquerable, but take special effort). Health is wealth you appreciate when you are sick. Before Daddy left, he’d introduce me to friends, and I shook hands and showed respect. I was not Mama’s favorite, but she loved me and had enough to go around. She was fair and I could read her like a book. I failed the second grade, and she said I was smart. More importantly, she stayed after Daddy left.

I realized respect was currency. If you give it, good things happen. Disrespect costs. If you show disrespect, you will not get his or her best; if you completely undress a person (strip him or her of their worth), they may hurt or even kill you—I have seen it happen. Thus, there is a penalty in sports for taunting which appeals to the worst in us tempting us to do what we don’t stand for. Respect can soften the wrath of even our adversaries.

I was an unruly eighth grader, and gentlemen came to my classroom and talked about making decisions. Surprisingly my ears perked up. Before doing something, they said to ask yourself three questions: (1) Is it the truth? (2) Is it good for all concerned? (3) Will it build goodwill and better relationships? If you get a no to any of these questions, don’t do it! Somehow as a twelve-year-old, these questions stayed in my mind for the next sixty-one years. I didn’t always have someone to help me decide, and these questions helped. I recently found out that those were Rotary Club questions.

Mama was working in a factory raising seven children alone, and the church and our neighbors respected her. It was in their eyes and tone; it made me like them. Feeling welcomed, food and girls aided my religious indoctrination. When I slid down into the tub for a Saturday night bath, the hot water reminded me of what hell might be like, and thus I assumed there was an afterlife. I was not committed to Christianity; it was Mama’s religion. I watched and the God she served loved her; and it was enough for me. I learned, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take . . . I also memorized The Lord’s Prayer.

Years later, Baby Love (the song by the Supremes) would play back in my head for days after listening to the record. It was also true of Psalm 23: The Lord Is My Shepherd playing back when I was under duress reminding me at bedtime that I was not alone (you see, I had a host of fears and suspicions).

In the film Patton, when General Patton had to apologize to a soldier he slapped, he uttered psalms as he went to addtess his entire company as ordered by General Eisenhower. Psalms were written to encourage. There are works of art that inspire even as they entertain. I Shall Not Be Moved is an old one; singing it has helped me and others. Michelangelo’s David (ready for battle) is another. Rodin’s The Thinker inspires a respect for thought. I absorbed things that helped. If your choices only entertain, you will be empty when you need courage, insight, and inspiration. Just shake that thing will not bail you out. You are young and gifted, and you must pack your mind for your journey.

I entered dental school at age twenty-one and failed. I repeated Basic Techniques in the summer and still didn’t pass (carving wax and molding teeth into metal). I was distraught. What was I to do? I had a job in the summer working in the cafeteria at the university hospital. A fellow worker, a Black man, heard I had failed and said, Brother, you aren’t going to make it. You gonna be here just like me! I hated him for saying that. If I was going to come back fighting, I needed to be my own cheerleader. I had wanted to be a physician, but Mama’s church didn’t believe in being one, so I had chosen dentistry. I would thereafter make my own decisions and obtain a bachelor’s degree and apply to medical school. But first, I had to get my butt off the ground. I found and read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.

That was 1964, and I was up and walking across the diag (the central diagonal walkway on the University of Michigan campus) and met a White friend from Grand Rapids. We greeted and he asked me about dental school. I said I failed, and he wanted to know my plans.

I will become a physician. By the look on his face, you would have thought I said I was planning to become president.

We took pride in our mother working and supporting us. At twelve, we judged ourselves by athletics, fighting, friends, and edibles. Girls came into the picture, and it was what you wore and what you or your parents had and did. Bragging and negative conversations took the form of a rap with rhythm, cadence, and an audience. The victim might break down and cry or fight or might not engage at all. I don’t play that! could mean that the instigator is in for a fight and must decide to continue or not. Our neighbors ate better and dressed better, but we knew they weren’t because of Mama.

In 1957, my White civics teacher said, Did you know that some colored people don’t speak to one another? I thought, What a stupid man! Clearly, he didn’t appreciate our humanity and diversity. It was in the 1950s, and although there were no written Jim Crow laws in Michigan, the propaganda was that Whites were better than the rest of us (Negroes, Mexicans, and Indians). Television, radio, films, and books promoted Whiteness—even Jesus and Moses were White with European features (not Semitic). The same teacher displayed similar ignorance many times during my high school years; fortunately, not all did.

My freshman year of high school, I was failing and disrespected by peers and my younger brother (your uncle Bill) and felt empty and alone. Mama’s church filled a hole. The service ended after the altar call, and a group of us kneeled, praying sometimes for over an hour and tarrying (praying) for the Holy Ghost manifested by speaking in tongues.

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, I repeated, kneeling with helpers putting down napkins. I was speaking in tongues, only I didn’t hear what others confirmed. I rose as the room glowed, and I slept, sensing a lion roaring around me unable to penetrate my space. I returned the next night.

God will give you a satisfying portion! Mama assured me. She was saintly. When I was small and sick and didn’t go to school, I slept at the foot of her bed often dreaming Bible stories.

That next night I was singing and began speaking in tongues. I was sure of it! Thereafter, I would have the same fervor I had for sports (which the church didn’t believe in playing). I prayed hard, sang poorly, was in choir, and began trying to better understand myself and the world around me. The first thing Pastor Brisbin said was I should come to church as much as possible even if I had to come late and leave early and that I should have friends that were going in the same direction I was and not to masturbate. I was sixteen and had never masturbated.

He was saying, Your friends affect your journey, and you have or will have strong drives you must rule over. He told me many things during those years. Some were doctrinal beliefs and opinions about dress, work, and etiquette. One of the most important was to never feel sorry for myself. When I was seventeen, he spent a year every Wednesday night teaching The Book of Job. It became one of my favorites and was not just a great story, but one of the wisdom books that I would study in the years ahead.

From sixteen to twenty-one was one of the best of times. There were challenges at home, school, and work, but I was alive inside and could feel the love of God through the saints (every committed Christian). I felt special in a way that when I look back now, I realize God was healing and untwisting me and preparing me for a life of service, not just in medicine, but as a way of life. I remember one of those summer days. I worked at Kamm’s Grocery, and Mama was at work and the sun was shining and the doors in the house were open to the breezes; I felt wonder at being seventeen and alive and in our own house with a family and people who loved me.

Church folks believed in holiness—living without sin by the power of the Holy Ghost. And they call themselves saints; the goal was holiness. When people said we were all sinners, their response was What sins did we have to commit? And when a person did, it was important to confess. Confession was a strong sacrament and a chance to get it right and continue living the Christian life. One must repent, confess, and forsake, and with that came the redemptive power of God through the Holy Ghost. During those early years and throughout my life, I would confess many times. Sometimes after I hit my sister, I would call the pastor even if it was late at night, and he would take my confession over the phone, and we would pray together. When I was in high school and felt strong temptation or the tide against my doing the right thing, I would call him, and we would pray over the phone or sometimes after service. I would not wait twenty-four hours to confess and wouldn’t let the sun go down on my misdeeds. I learned that talking people down or listening to it from others was a step away from holiness, and I needed a clean heart to keep God’s presence in my life.

After the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I experienced a new interest in the Bible. I always loved the stories about Jonathan, David, Samson, and Solomon. I began to cherish the psalms and find the encouragement I needed as I tried to walk the walk. I particularly liked the letters of the New Testament like Paul to Timothy filled with wisdom, love of God, and of the saints (brothers and sisters). The part of me that is a writer loved the King James Version that would make Shakespeare familiar and enjoyable.

There was a church tradition of fasting on Wednesdays. I would take only liquids all day, and it taught me things. Nobody was making me fast or asking me to. On the days that I wasn’t sure I wanted to fast, I was hungry. My body had a vote, and it said hungry—want food! But when I was committed, I felt no hunger. My body knew I had decided and was the boss, and its vote didn’t count. A body saying hunger is not always lying or wanting its own way. The desire for food is good and has a place, but the place is not in the driver’s seat. Sometimes it says you need to eat, and you should. At other times, it can be disordered and want food because of loneliness, avarice, or entertainment.

Julie, I was pleased to see how you embraced fasting during your senior year of high school when you were trying to choose athletic scholarships between Connecticut, Notre Dame, Duke, and Northwestern. It gave you a clearer mind and increased your discipline on how to choose and what to look for, augmenting the discipline it took to become a division 1 recruit and earn your scholarship. After graduating from Notre Dame and the five thousand calories per day of an athlete, you were able to maintain your weight and become a model.

At eight the free camp (Camp O’Malley) run by the policemen and Grand Rapids Youth Commonwealth in the summer took a hundred boys for six weeks and a hundred girls for six weeks. The meals were my highlights. A few of us took too much and had to stay until our plates were empty. They also expected you to brush your teeth in the morning (Mama was too busy feeding us to see if we brushed). Except for camp, I didn’t take care of my teeth and entered high school with cavities.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, was one of the first in the nation to fluorinate its water. Would you believe our school had a dentist? He came once a week for poor kids and was free. I spent hours in his chair. He pulled the bad ones and filled the others. One of those fillings stayed fifty years. You see, I sat and watched the setup; it was sometimes painful. He was nicely dressed and a gentleman. It was a good gig, clean; you were helping people, making a living, and respected. What more could you ask for in a job?

In the fifties, we memorized a great deal. The words played back throughout life: The Gettysburg Address, Mark Anthony’s speech, If by Kipling, Do You Fear the Wind by Hamlin Garlin, and Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening. If someone was doing it better, I copied it. Copying was cool. I’d copy speech, the way a baseball player played his position, or boxing techniques. To copy is appreciation. George Plimpton, the writer, said he used to hold his arm bent like Carl Hubbell; Carl threw a curve ball that made his arm somewhat twisted, and George would walk around holding his arm that way. His folks kept asking what was wrong with his arm. Boys hang their tongues out, driving to the basket, some biting themselves. But what is being copied is Michael Jordan loving the game. If you have a love for something, then it is not just a job, and you can achieve excellence.

Daddy saw labor as noble, manly, and rewarding. His bosses liked him because when he was there, he was all out. If he was absent because of his drinking, they would come looking for him because they liked how he worked. It is special to see people who love and appreciate what they are doing whether they are great men and women or manual laborers.