As a board-certified neonatologist, Dr. Benjamin Rattray 鈥�01 spends all his time in the hospital caring for premature infants. He gets to know the babies and their families as they cling to life in the days and weeks following birth. In a new book, 鈥淲hen All Becomes New: A Doctor鈥檚 Stories of Life, Love, and Loss鈥� (Wipf & Stock, 2021), he describes some of his tiny patients and their struggle for life.
The volume grew out of notes about his patients. 鈥淪omething happened, and I just kept writing,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 finished one and then had another story to tell.鈥� Eventually, the stories became a book. He spent six years on it, patching together time to write whenever he could.
Meanwhile, he completed an MBA, founded a writing project for physicians led by professors from the University of North Carolina Greensboro MFA program and kept up a busy schedule as associate medical director of neonatal intensive care at Cone Health in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Each chapter of his book focuses on a patient, ranging from a preterm baby with sepsis to a full-term infant with a birth injury. Ben changed the details to keep most of his patients anonymous. 鈥淭hese stories have stuck with me over the years and affected me the most,鈥� he says.
He recounts resuscitating a baby on the cusp of viability, purposely inducing hypothermia in a newborn, and removing and replacing twice an infant鈥檚 blood. 鈥淚 share intimate moments from my experiences, such as flying to stabilize a sick newborn, resuscitating a baby in the emergency room after the death of the mother and placing a breathing tube in a 500-gram baby and seeing her years later at a preschool show,鈥� he says. He also reflects on the disquieting transition from work to home, the death of a close colleague and his struggle to relate to a drug-addicted mother.
鈥淣eonatology is an incredibly interpersonal field as we develop relationships with families and their sick babies,鈥� he says. 鈥淢eeting with parents in such a stressful and difficult time can be emotional. Patients can stay in the NICU for months at a time.鈥�
Ben started at 蜜桃传媒 as an English major but switched to biology when he realized he wanted to pursue medicine. Lots of summer school classes and organic chemistry made him occasionally question his decision. Despite his change in majors, he got all the 蜜桃传媒 classes he needed. 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 have done that at a big university,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 appreciated the Christian LIBERAL ARTS, my classes, relationships with professors and the beautiful campus.鈥� In a seminar with former English professor Marilyn McEntyre, Ben read books by physicians.
He got involved in Christian Concerns his sophomore year and served on the medical and dental team for Potter鈥檚 Clay his junior year. He also volunteered at a clinic in downtown Santa Barbara and on the pediatrics floor at Cottage Hospital.
After graduating from 蜜桃传媒, he worked as a pediatric medical assistant and an EMT for two years. 鈥淭hat helped me mature,鈥� he says. Ben then earned his medical degree from Western University of Health Sciences and completed a residency in pediatrics and a three-year fellowship in neonatology at Duke University.
He earned the MBA to get a background in business, learn the language of administrators and better understand the other side of medicine. Ben belongs to a neonatal care practice with nine full-time physicians associated with a 45-bed NICU, where they provide around-the-clock coverage.
Ben鈥檚 mother worked as a midwife in England. When his parents emigrated to New Zealand, where Ben was born, she served as a district nurse, driving around Wellington to provide outpatient care. 鈥淚 went on rounds with her occasionally,鈥� Ben says. 鈥淚t made a big impact.鈥� The family also lived in London and Sydney before moving to Irvine when he was 13. 鈥淟iving in so many places expands your worldview, but being uprooted is difficult,鈥� he says. 鈥淎t 蜜桃传媒, I learned I could overcome things I was nervous about.鈥�
Ben met his wife, Danielle, in a high school church youth group. She majored in biology at UCLA and did pharmaceutical research. She stays home with their three children, 15, 12 and 9.