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Missouri Baptist University
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For Immediate Release

RE: Heal

Heal

June 12, 2006

Changing the World . . . one life at a time

Editor’s Note: This is the second feature in a series of stories about how MBU constituents are changing the world. Check back on June 23 to read about an MBU student who is changing the world at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City.

The thought of pulling an eighty-hour work week doesn’t seem to faze Rob Tilley anymore. Working six days out of every week has become cake. Even the daunting task of a thirty-hour rotation in a crowded ICU seems almost typical for the 27-year-old MBU alumnus.

But when you are a resident physician for the only trauma hospital in Midwest Missouri, arduous shifts and rigorous workweeks go along with the job like bread goes with butter.

Last July, Dr. Rob Tilley, ’00, began a four-year residency program at University Hospital in Columbia, Mo., specializing in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. Currently, Tilley is working rotations in all of the major medical units––from the psychiatric ward to the Hospital’s busy intensive care unit. More than 25 percent of University Hospital’s beds––more than twice that of the average community hospital––are dedicated to intensive care patients.

For Tilley, the tangible products associated with his line of work––from helping people walk who were confined to a wheelchair to telling a cancer patient for the first time that they no longer show signs of abnormal cell growth––trump the long days he’s putting in.

“I reflect a lot on the fact that this is God’s ministry,” said Tilley, who married MBU Alumnus Jill Hayes ’99 shortly after she graduated. “I know what I am doing is what I’ve been called to do.”

While he’s knee-deep into his medical residency, his pursuit to become a doctor began years earlier at MBU. Tilley moved on MBU’s campus and started his freshman year in the fall of 1997 with full intentions of graduating with a degree that would enable him to become a teacher, or, perhaps, a preacher.

But with a growing desire, natural attraction to the sciences and, most importantly, increasingly clear calling to help elevate the wellness of people, Tilley changed his major from education to biology.

He doesn’t regret his decision.

“I remember over Christmas break of my freshman year, really praying hard about becoming a doctor,” Tilley explained. “For me, being a doctor ended up being a perfect fit, and I’ve really had that desire ever since.”

In 2001, Tilley was accepted into a stringent program at Missouri University––School of Medicine where he spent four years gaining academic and practical skills needed to become a doctor. He garnered his MD in 2005.

Despite the intensity associated with life as a medical student, Tilley and his wife began their family during his days in med school. His second daughter was born this past year, during Tilley’s first year as a resident physician.

“Looking back, I might not have been as successful academically as I potentially could have been,” Tilley explained, referring to the delicate balance of his vocation and family. “But that’s what I took on when I decided to have a family. My family is my priority.”

Despite the adversities he faces, Tilley is indeed changing the world––healing one life at a time.

“I feel like this is God’s calling on my life,” Tilley said. “That makes it bearable, for instance, when I am at the end of a 30-hour rotation and I think a patient is asking for something completely unreasonable.”

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Missouri Baptist University is a premier Christian university in Saint Louis, offering graduate and undergraduate studies in over thirty specialized fields and nine degrees. MBU's education and fine arts programs are nationally known in addition to business, religion, administration of justice, and more. MBU is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Missouri with an enrollment of over 4,500 students at five locations in the bi-state region — West County, Lincoln County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the new Illinois extension at Lewis and Clark Community College.

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