Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 148 Plough Quarterly • Winter 2015 You’ve said that when you stand before a child with disabilities you feel as though you are stand- ing in the presence of God. Can you explain what you mean? One of the things I have learned working with people with disabilities is that they live closer to the cross than the rest of us. They carry their disabilities all the time. They don’t get a day off. They don’t get a minute off. People with spas- ticity or athetosis feel it every day. People with Down syndrome have it wherever they go. And their disabilities are just as real and just as phys- ical as the wounds on Jesus’ hands and feet or the spear mark in his side that Thomas put his hand into. And so I find they bring me closer Plough: What drew you to working with ­ children with disabilities, and what keeps you at it now? Dr. Dutkowsky: Well, the truth is I haven’t the foggiest notion what drew me to this work, but I can tell you how it happened. I was working on the West Coast for an aerospace company analyzing nuclear-weapons testing data and decided instead to apply to medical school. I wrote that I wanted to take some of this aero- space technology that was being employed to blow people up and use it to help people with disabilities, particularly children. I have no idea why I wrote that, but I did and it launched my vocation. It’s the best job in the world. Schooling Me, the Surgeon What I’ve Learned from Children with Disabilities An Interview with Joseph Dutkowsky, MD Joseph Dutkowsky is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in treating children with disabilities such as cerebral palsy, spinal bifida, and muscular dystrophy; he divides his time between Columbia University in Manhattan and Cooperstown in upstate New York. Recently profiled in the New York Times and on PBS, he stands out as a rare public example of someone whose faith infuses his practice of medicine. Plough recently caught up with him on the road between jobs.