At the start of a class, which he almost skipped that day, he learned that the American Cancer Society was sponsoring a summer externship in a radiation oncology clinic.
He applied and "fell in love with it. I loved the fact that you're taking care of a whole human. You weren't just dealing with a person's problems in just one part of the body," he said. "They're typically pretty acute ones, not longstanding ones. For my personality, I like that type of thing."
Dr. Cooley, who is a member of Ss. Peter and Paul Parish, Green Bay, and the diocesan Board of Education, also liked the spiritual connection.
"When you think about why we're here and the opportunity to be involved in people's lives in such a dramatic fashion, where you're literally facing life and death issues, that just had a much deeper dimension for me and I felt really honored to have that," Dr. Cooley said.
"One of the things I like in working with cancer patients is that they come to you with a different perspective," Dr. Cooley said. "You can work in an emergency room where the guy is in for his fifth drug abuse problem or other traumatic illnesses. People that come in with cancer - because they are facing life and death issues - a lot of the stuff that we think is important is stripped away, things we find out that it are really pretty silly," he said.
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"From a physician's perspective it allows you to interact with people in a much more personal and close way where they have to have a sense of trust in you and you have to give them everything you've got. That's very rewarding too. There aren't any pretenses," he said. "You're there to help them and they're there trusting you."
Such involvement can take an emotional toll, Dr. Cooley said. That's why it's important to be compassionate and empathize, but not sympathize, with patients. That also allows him to do the best job possible in much the way a pilot does, he said.
Beyond the sorrows are the joys, including relationships with patients, giving a patient a clean bill of health at a five-year check-up and the interactions with staff and patients, he said.