Altruism: It Lies Within All of Us

Altruism: The ultimate driver of charity. Doing something just because it is the right thing to do. It lies within all of us, to one extent or the other, indelibly etched in our genome and cultural heritage. In some, the willingness to yield to its power occurs every minute of every day. In others, it sparks to life spontaneously from time to time. In others, it requires a little cajoling to move a person to charitable action. So what does it take to turn on the altruistic fire in each of us? What is the trigger?

I have been told that my choice of public health as a profession puts me in the former of those categories. I certainly did not do it for the level of pay. My oldest daughter used to get kidded when she attended her scholarship-paid private school in Cincinnati because I was in the health field, but I am not a doctor. We constantly got mail sent to Dr. Gary Stein, no matter how many times I corrected them. The other parents and administration couldn’t figure out my motivation. How can you be working in the health field and have an income of less than $45,000 per year? Considering that I lived in a family with some medically-fragile people, I had to rely on my insurance to keep them healthy, instead of my income. In this day and age, with the current state of the health care system, it may have not been my best decision, but I made it with the altruism in my heart running at full-blast.

At the time, I was working as a field agent and Public Health Advisor for the CDC, tracking and bringing folks with STDs, TB and HIV to treatment. It was a noble cause and hard work. I did it over two decades, moving my family across the country through several automatic transfers. It was hard on my family and far from comfortable or glamorous. So why did I do it? I felt personally rewarded. It made me feel good.

Recently, The Huffington Post reprinted an article from the St. Petersburg Times about my wife and family, and how we have endured the trials and tribulations of dealing with the health care system and their genetically-based disease, Sticklers Syndrome. The combination of my middle-class income and the ability (or inability) of our insurance to cover their care led to a financial decision that ultimately led to my wife’s current loss of eyesight for the sake of her children’s care.