By Angela E. Pometto
Herald Managing Editor
(From the issue of 12/23/04)

When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem, they went from inn to inn, looking for a place where Mary could have her baby. Many women today know what that is like. They, too, are looking for help. The Tepeyac Family Center in Fairfax, now a non-profit center, hopes to ease their fears.

"The inn will have room. We won’t have to turn people away," said Dr. John Bruchalski. While the pro-life OB/GYN facility has done its best to help the uninsured and those with crisis pregnancies, the non-profit status will allow them to accept all who come to their door.

While Tepeyac remains the same, it is now under the banner of Divine Mercy Care, founded four years ago by Bruchalski. Divine Mercy Care works to promote a culture of life in many areas, while Tepeyac specializes in reproductive medicine.

The Divine Mercy Care Gala was held earlier this month at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Great Falls. Nearly 300 Tepeyac supporters gathered in tuxes and satin for the dinner that raised over $90,000 for the center in dinner tickets, silent and live auctions, and pledges. Everything was donated, from the catered food to the band.

"This is a testament to Dr. Bruchalski and his work," said Jo Ellen Murphy, co-chair of the gala. "Everyone is here because they love him and what he is doing."

Bruchalski, member of St. Joseph Parish in Herndon, has been delivering babies at Tepeyac for 10 years. As a non-profit organization, Tepeyac will be able to network with other non-profit health facilities to find funding for the ever-rising cost of medical malpractice insurance.

The process of becoming non-profit took only six months, a miracle in itself. They applied for it on the Feast of the Annunciation and got it on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

"This is part of Our Lady’s blessing to us," said Bruchalski. "God is never late, nor early. He provides on His time."

While the center will continue accepting insurance from those who have it, 26 percent of Tepeyac patients have no health insurance. Bruchalski’s patients think the non-profit status is wonderful.

"Now I can donate and get a tax deduction," Murphy said.

According to Murphy, Bruchalski sees 40 percent less profit than most obstetricians in Northern Virginia, simply because he doesn’t participate in contraception, sterilization or abortion.

Tepeyac’s three pillars are to be faithful to the magisterium of the Church, especially on teachings of biomedical ethics; to serve the poor; and to help with crisis pregnancies.

"We are in the midst of a perfect storm," Bruchalski said, explaining there is a crisis of faith and of medicine. "But the reality is that Jesus is asleep in the boat with us."

In 2003, malpractice premiums in Virginia were $40,000 a year. A year later they are $115,000.

"Medicine is changing drastically," Bruchalski said. "Doctors are losing sight of why they practice medicine. We are hoping to change the paradigm in medicine. We’re going back to the roots of being an institution of God’s healing."

Bruchalski calls this plan "back to the future." He believes that physicians can rediscover joy in their work by giving holistic care to patients and their families.

Divine Mercy Care already sponsors several programs that aid mothers and children. They organize the annual memorial service for women who have lost children through miscarriage, stillbirth, disease and abortion. They created a perinatal hospice project that treats the child in a complicated pregnancy as a hospice patient. This cares for the family until the natural death of the child. The tubal reversal project helps women undo a previous tube-tying.

During the gala, four mothers were honored for representing the ideals of Tepeyac, and a couple who had financially supported the switch to non-profit.

"We sense the pain of the culture of death in medicine," Bruchalski said. Changing the face of medicine will not be easy, but Tepeyac is determined to continue the fight.