Student Profile: Trevor Deachin: An Extension of Compassion

By: Caitlin A. Fredericks

While Rochester College students are actively pursue degrees and are preparing for

opportunities to advance their careers, God-orientated junior and nursing major Trevor Deachin

is looking to establish meaningful relationships, and to be an encouragement to everyone he

encounters.

A local from the small town of Goodrich, Michigan, Deachin was raised in a Christ-

centered home where his parents modeled the importance of church attendance, and

demonstrated a passion for people. Though their efforts were initially disregarded, these early

influences laid the foundation for the family’s decision to send Deachin to private Faithway

Christian Schools, and where he would later come to know God.

Eventually and as Deachin was preparing for his transition into Faithway Tabernacle

High School, his outlook on life gradually shifted in February 2009, after his brother Kyle,

sustained a C-five vertebra spinal cord injury. This temporary paralysis, which came after

tobogganing with a group of friends, left doctors doubting if his sibling would ever regain the

ability to walk. As his brother remained hospitalized, Deachin occupied his time by visiting sick

children in the critical care unit. Gradually as Deachin became accustomed to these interactions,

he soon bonded with a boy named Isaac, who underwent brain surgery, and a young girl who

was suffering from brain cancer. In regards to these interactions, Deachin said “Isaac and I

would spent time together eating milkshakes and watching movies, and I would always tell the

girl how beautiful I thought she was.” Therefore, it was through establishing these relationships

that Deachin desired to become a pediatric nurse because he not only felt the extent of the

suffering, but also noticed how well the children responded tor their treatments when they were

positively uplifted.

Though this experience confirmed Deachin’s calling to be both relational and

encouraging in every aspect of his life, he still grappled with the concept of faith and who God

really was. Finally, after failing to make sense of the world around him, Deachin said he

“questioned the meaning of life, and heard God instruct him to live it for him.” Nevertheless, and

when this prayer was answered in his junior year of high school, Deachin said he became more

motivated to become “God-centered, to be there for anyone, to encourage accountability, and to

inspire people to achieve their goals whether they’re on a baseball field, a basketball court, or at

a Bible study youth group.”

Currently Deachin is a second semester nursing student here at RC, and is actively

preparing for a career in the nursing field by participating in clinical studies at Pontiac’s

McLaren Hospital, and by working to solidify the relationships he has with the two nurses who

have offered him positions to shadow their work for the summer.

Subsequently, Deachin hopes that after completing his Bachelor of Science is 2018, he is

privileged with the opportunity to pursue a graduate school degree as a physician’s assistant.

While Deachin foresees himself marrying and starting a family within the next ten years, he said

he “hopes to take more of an active role within the church, and to extend Christian relationships

to patients in the hospital.” Nevertheless, Deachin said that those receiving future medical care

from him should be encouraged that “they’ll be taken care of immediately, and that their

spiritual, emotional, and physical needs will be met.”