David Miller ’76 during a trip to Antarctica
An Elizabethtown College education is for people who feel the pull to contribute to the world. With a network of 24,425 living alumni, our graduates leave Etown to become the influential advocates and changemakers the world needs more of.
Meet David Miller ’76, a Chemistry and Religion alumnus who retired following a successful career in medical technology including his most recent role as a Senior Clinical Specialist at Siemens Healthcare.
Etown gave me the tools I needed to succeed academically, as well as religiously, and as a person. It is where I grew in my knowledge, my interpersonal skills, and my faith. This combination is what shaped me as a person.
What defined your Etown experience?
I came to Etown primarily to play soccer and figure out the academics as I went. I first learned about Etown through a pamphlet, in which there was a picture of the soccer team and I saw that the College had coursework in medical terminology, which piqued my interest since my father was a chemist. I was a mediocre student in high school. My high school guidance counselors had told me to go to trade school because of my learning difficulties, but Etown took a chance on me. I later learned that I had dyslexia and PTSD from violence in my past.
At Etown, I learned to work through my past struggles to succeed academically and maintain my place on the soccer team, as the sport was my biggest relief from the world. I played ball, I ran at night, I learned how to study, and Etown provided me with a safe place to figure out how to do all of that.
The hands-on approach to instrumental analysis was invaluable to me in maintaining laboratory instruments and quality in rural hospital settings as well as in busy trauma hospitals. I learned a respect for the breadth of chemistry. Aware that I would never have the ability to truly be a chemist I found my niche helping developmental clinical chemists understand the real-world issues with their products from the techs on the line in hospitals.
How has Etown changed you as a person?
The professors at Etown mentored me through their lives and with the tools they introduced me to. I improved academically as well as growing in my interpersonal skills and my faith. This combination of science and maturing faith shaped me as a person.
Throughout my career, the combination of a solid education in the health sciences and mentors of faith guided me every day – including the challenging days. During the hospital portion of my career, I provided technical clinical support to patient care as well as had the opportunity of pastoral support. For example, while sitting with family outside the rural hospital operating room praying for more blood to arrive in time during a snowstorm or sharing in breath prayers as we all worked on a lumbering accident by holding pressure on bleeders. The same technical knowledge, love, and care were needed in the industrial setting during the work I performed to understand what went wrong clinically with a particular laboratory test or procedure. How to, with love (in its true sense) help people understand the root cause when it may indicate a potentially serious issue – with a developmental chemist’s assay. Or to inform and then educate a doctor that the way an assay or procedure is being done is potentially harmful/lethal. Or to cross boundaries of gender and culture around this world when teaching or inspecting.
How has your Etown degree benefitted you and your career success?
The staff and students at Etown, particularly the Chemistry and Religion departments were significant factors in my experience. I had teachers who held me to a high standard but gave me what I needed to succeed. The Chemistry department gave me what I needed for the rest of my life, which was how to continue to learn something new. They gave me my baseline.
The soccer team, which I was privileged to play on with teammates well above my ability, provided not just the magic of creating 90 minutes of pure joy but also protected me from the past and pointed me to a world where I could be a source of help and joy for others. I have not forgotten the feel of Elizabethtown grass under my feet.
View more Etown Changemakers at etown.edu/125.