It could be argued that a doctor, a visionary, and a clergyman occupy separate and distinct roles. But that doesn't prevent a single man from being all three.

 

Larry Braden—who came to Camden, Ark., as a family practitioner in 1983—has for the past several years also served St. John's Episcopal Church in Camden as an ordained priest. In addition, Braden also took a leading role in establishing the city's Christian Health Center, an innovative, community-supported clinic for the working uninsured.

 

Braden, who said he believes deeply in the vital importance of community, sees all three roles as a means of serving the community he has adopted as his home.

 

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Braden said he entered the U.S. Navy immediately following his high school graduation; he served four years and then returned to Hawaii, where he completed his first two years of undergraduate work. Originally a physics major, Braden said he didn't decide on a career in family practice until he'd relocated to Little Rock, Ark., switched his academic major, and completed his undergraduate degree in nuclear medicine.

 

"I saw the doctors working, saw what they did, and I decided that's what I wanted to do, too," Braden said. "So by the time I started medical school, I was already an old man. I was 26."

 

Braden earned his medical degree at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, and there he remained to complete his residency in family practice. He then moved to Camden, where he has been ever since.

 

But even in the early days, Braden said he saw his role as something more than treating patients in a traditional clinic setting. His belief in community and his deep concern for the entire spectrum of healthcare needs soon led him into the medical mission field, and this work, in turn, inspired him to take a founding role in the establishment of the Christian Health Center (CHC).

 

"It (CHC) started with a group of five people," Braden said. "It started in our heads."

 

Braden said the fundamentals of the clinic solidified for him as the result of a mission trip to Ecuador in the early 1990s.

 

"We'd been going to Ecuador for several years," Braden explained. "We'd fly into Quito and then do clinics in El Carmen.

 

"Well, one year, Dyan (Braden's wife) went ahead and met a poor mother with a two-year-old child who, it turned out, had hydrocephalus. They determined the child needed a shunt, and the procedure was going to cost $2,000. Well, the child's mother was poor and didn't have the money, so the doctor basically handed the child back to her and said, 'Well, let the baby die.'

 

"Dyan was shocked, outraged. She called me and was asking, "'What are we going to do?'"

 

Ultimately, Braden said, his wife wrote a check to cover the child's care, and the child received the life-saving procedure. But it was then that the truly surprising thing happened.

 

"The mother's community church got together and raised the money to pay Dyan back," Braden said.

 

After hearing his wife's story, Braden said, he went through the gambit of emotions: anger, outrage, sadness. But then, he realized the doctor who had refused to treat the child was really within his rights.

 

"I realized that the healthcare industry has no responsibility to provide care for no recompense, and if someone were to say of the 50 million uninsured people in this country, 'Well, let them die,' maybe communities would do something about the problem."

 

So, in 1997, the CHC opened its doors to the uninsured of Camden. It was opened with a simple understanding; if the community would support it, it would remain open. An office visit at CHC costs $12, but the clinic is not a charity provided by the doctors who work there.

 

"We decided from the beginning to put together a clinic entirely dependent on the public," Braden said. "We said we would do as much as the public would support, and it (the public) has done that."

 

The center draws some equipment funding from grants, but the day-to-day operations are supported almost entirely through two annual fundraisers and private donations from the community. Some of the donations come from local churches; others, are provided by private citizens. This, according to Braden, is as it should be.

 

"Healthcare is a community responsibility," he said. "The sustenance of the program is supported by the community. If the community ever stops supporting it, it'll close."

 

That, however, seems unlikely to happen.

 

Since its inception, the center has steadily grown. It recently moved into a new building and has added a number of services, including laboratory services, a pharmacy, and a dental program.

 

And if Braden's regular clinical work and his work at the CHC weren't enough, he also fills a major role at St. John's Episcopal Church.

 

"I'm an ordained Episcopal priest," he said.

 

Braden explained how he came into this, his most recent area of service.

 

"The way that happened is, we're in a small town and we're a small church. We decided that, rather than pay a priest $60,000 a year, a group of us would go through a five-year curriculum locally to become ordained."
Braden said he completed this curriculum—which he described as quite rigorous—about four years ago, and now, he added, the church can use the funds it would have been paying as a priest's salary to further its work in the community.

 

Again, in Braden's view, this is as it should be.