Dr. Ted Wander

College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University Alums

Class of 1983 Saint John's University Alumni

MD from Mayo Medical School, 1989
Psychiatrist in Public Sector, Valley Mental Health, Salt Lake City, UT

Ted Wander writes:

By way of update, after leaving St. John's, I went to Mayo Medical School and graduated in 1987. Marianne Weston (CSB, '84) and I married in 1984. We have 2 children, Madeline (10) and Margaret (5). We came to Utah in '87. I did my residency in psychiatry and Marianne got her Masters Degree in Architecture. We both love our work and our kids love their school, so we intend to stay here.

Living in Salt Lake has been a wonderful growth experience for me. Where else can a white, male physician feel like he is an outsider? The experience has helped me be more open to women's, religious, and sexual orientation issues, to mention a few. And it is a fascinating experience to strip away the incense, lack of wives, plural wives, and other issues and learn how much I have in common with my Mormon friends.

Having said that, let me lead to a generalization about my medical colleagues. My fast few years in medical school were incredibly difficult. In retrospect, I think this was because I was immersed in a culture of pseudo-science, taught by well-intentioned people who believe that Biology is science. Too few of my colleagues appreciate the difference between describing illness and understanding it. That is not to say that I understand it-- the contrary, I simply believe that, because of my undergraduate training, I know something of the difference. To glimpse into the abyss of P-Chem affected me.

I chose Psychiatry without ever having taken a course in Psychology in high school or college. But in medical school, it seemed, clearly, the best combination of talking to people and working in a field with decent studies of medications. I work with people with chronic, severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness and depression, and I love it. I try to teach my patients to be optimistic about treatment, and also, to be skeptical, so that they are not devastated if our first attempt at treatment doesn't work. I think they appreciate the honesty.

I mention these things to try to impress upon you how much I value my education at St. John's, and especially, my education in Chemistry.

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