Born Without Legs, The Power of Faith and Family | Dr. Eric Saunders

Welcome to My Hero 360! In this inspiring interview, Kerri Fitzgerald talks with Dr. Eric Saunders, an ophthalmologist who was born without legs. Dr. Saunders shares how his faith helped him through tough times over the years, including in a situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has since started the process of rebuilding his practice and continuing to rely on faith and family in the face of tough times. 

Key Highlights: 

• Hear how Dr. Eric Saunders leaned into family and faith to reach his greatest potential. 
• Learn why Dr. Saunders chose to go into the field of medicine and ophthalmology in particular. 
• Hear about how Dr. Saunders had to make a difficult decision during the COVID-19 pandemic that impacted his career. 
• Be inspired by Dr. Saunders’ outlook on life and the family and faith that continue to uplift him. 

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Transcript:

Kerri Fitzgerald:

Hi, and welcome to My Hero 360. My name is Kerri, and today we are highlighting the hero story of Dr. Eric Saunders. My Hero 360 seeks to amplify the voices of remarkable individuals whose stories ignite inspiration and drive positive change.

Dr. Saunders, thank you for joining us today to share your story.

Eric Saunders, MD:

Hi, good morning, Kerri. How are you?

Kerri Fitzgerald:

Excellent. Glad to have you.

Eric Saunders, MD:

A pleasure to be here.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

Can you start by introducing yourself and providing a little background for the audience to get to know you better?

Eric Saunders, MD:

I’m Dr. Eric Saunders and I’m an ophthalmologist in Ridgewood, New Jersey. I’ve been in practice out of training about 23 to 24 years. I was born in Radford, Virginia, to, well eventually, 2 ministers. My father was a minister at the time. My mother became a minister later in life.

I was born into a loving family. I have a brother and a sister as well. The interesting thing about me was I was born without legs. I was a bit of a surprise because they did have ultrasound technology at the time, but I don’t think it was really used widespread. It was a surprise that I came out the way I did.

I was healthy otherwise, but I was born without legs. At that time, we didn’t really know why, but my family was very loving and accepting of me. I really had a great childhood growing up. I grew up as my dad being a minister in the Disciples of Christ denomination. The church was really a home for me. The people gave a lot of love and support, and it just really helped to start and to ground my faith in God and Jesus.

My family was very involved in making sure that, they wanted me to live as normal a life as possible. They wanted me to have what I needed, but to do what the other kids did. That was a theme throughout my whole life. If I wanted to try something, what things could I do? Could I maybe not do sports, what could I do? They always tried to encourage me. They always wanted to make sure that I did well in school so I could reach my fullest potential. It was just a very good experience growing up.

I did move around a little bit. I was born in Virginia, then around age 7, moved to Macon, Georgia. Then around second grade moved to a small town in Missouri, Poplar Bluff, which is where I probably would say would be most of my childhood that I remember a lot of. It was just a great experience growing up in a small town, a slower pace of life. Everybody knows everybody and it was just a great experience.

Probably my most favorite experience in high school was I got to wrestle. I played some baseball growing up when I was younger in Little League. But as you get older, you can’t have runners at the plate for you when you’re in high school. I found out that because of my upper body strength, I was able to wrestle.

I wrestled when I was in high school and I got a lot of support for that as well. I found out because my upper body strength was so high and I was at a lower weight because I didn’t have legs, I did have some disadvantages. My advantages were my strength. I went to the state tournament my junior year. That was one of the highlights of wrestling.

But the camaraderie was really great too. Taking the bus trips to and from the matches, sometimes staying in hotels, it was a great experience. I had a great coach, coach Terry Smith, and I always try to go back and visit him when I go back to Poplar Bluff to class reunions. He was really a great inspiration for me.

But yeah, it was a great childhood. Eventually, I went to college and decided to go to medical school to be a physician. Was influenced to go into ophthalmology, I would say primarily because of my brother Brian, who’s an optometrist. I wanted to do the medical surgical side of it, so I went to medical school.

I never really found out why I was born without legs until, I want to say I was age 10. My mom kind of called me in and told me, she said, “I just want to share something with you because there’s going to be a class action lawsuit. I took this medicine Bendectin when I was pregnant with you and I feel terrible about it, but I didn’t know anything about it. I was having morning sickness and the doctors just gave that out.”

This was a few years after thalidomide, and we all know what happened with that. That was proven in court to be teratogenic. With Bendectin, it ended up going through the same system and they said that they did not think it was teratogenic, but I did my own research. I didn’t really believe that. The suspicion is that was what caused me to be born without legs.

I was a little surprised when I heard about it as a child. I wasn’t really angry, definitely not angry at my mother. My mother was great for me, but I think she had trouble letting that go. I had to tell her many times, “I am what I am today, partially because of that.” I had to keep telling her, “It’s not your fault, it’s okay.”

People would think that might deter me from going into medicine, but I was in so many hospitals growing up, not for my health, but for my legs, getting prosthetic legs, seeing orthopedists. I did have a surgery on one of my legs, so I had seen my share of hospitals. What I noticed when I was in a lot of those clinics, with other kids like me waiting to see the doctor, was I probably the least disabled person in those waiting rooms.

It was just a nice experience to hang out with those kids and play with them. Because I know that a lot of them, for various reasons, might not be able to reach the same potential that I would be able to. I wanted, not necessarily to be an orthopedist, but just to go into medicine to be able to help people. I think that’s what drove me to go into medicine.

Overall, I had a very good childhood, despite what I went through. The adversities that I had to overcome, honestly, wasn’t a great burden because I had a great family. Like I said, I grew up in the church, so it was as easy an experience as it could have been.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

Yeah. I love how you said your family wanted you to do everything you could and live, as you said, normal as possible and encourage you to do things like sports. I know being on a team, especially in teenage years, is often a really bonding and positive experience for many people.

Just going back to what you said about the medication, so teratogenic, that means that there’s the potential for the medication to pass through to the fetus, is that correct?

Eric Saunders, MD:

That is correct. It’s a pharmaceutical that when taken by a woman who’s pregnant, that it has the potential to cause harm or damage or death to the fetus, the growing baby.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

You mentioned it didn’t deter you from going into medicine. Would you say there was any particular doctor or time in your life when you were interacting with physicians that further pushed you or inspired you to go into medicine?

Eric Saunders, MD:

I had a great surgeon, Dr. Toombs, who’s in Memphis, and he was an orthopedic surgeon. We didn’t really talk about medical school, but I just remember he exuded this kindness and confidence. From that sense, I wanted to be like him.

I didn’t really want to go into orthopedics. I knew I wanted to be a physician, but I just remember I was scared about having surgery with him. It was on one of my legs and he just made me feel at ease. I’ve done a lot of these and you’re in good hands and he explained everything to me.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

You mentioned you grew up, both of your parents were ministers. Would you say that your faith really was something you leaned into to get through any challenging times? Was there anything else that really helped you when you were growing up, when you were maybe frustrated by things you were going through, you had to go through surgeries? What really helped you push through?

Eric Saunders, MD:

It was definitely my family and my faith. My faith from a sense, because a family can only go so far. When they can’t help, you really have, in my sense, growing up in the church and having a deep faith in God and in Jesus, it was a lot of prayer. It was a lot of situations where my family has helped me as much as they can. How am I going to get through this? It was a lot of prayer, tried to have as much faith as possible, but sometimes we lose faith, and how am I going to get through this? This doesn’t seem possible.

It was just a lot of prayer, a lot of deep talks with God down in my heart about what to do about certain situations, and how am I going to get out of this thing? I’m sure that’s what got me through a lot of tough situations. I definitely know I wouldn’t be where I am today without that faith in God and without God’s help, definitely wouldn’t be where I am today.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

It’s nice and it’s important to have community, as you mentioned, to buoy you when you’re in times of struggle. That’s great.

Now you’re an ophthalmologist and so you probably see patients who are dealing with a range of ocular, eye conditions. Some of them I’m sure, are going through tough times. Vision loss, that can be very scary and difficult.

How do you counsel patients and is there anything that personal guidance that you give to your patients that try to help steer them?

Eric Saunders, MD:

One of my favorite things about being an ophthalmologist is not only, it’s fun, just working with eyes is fun. It’s one of the types of specialties where if something serious is going on with a patient, you can sometimes diagnose them by looking in their eyes. What I mean by that is systemic problems. They’re manifesting in the eyes.

For example, I had a patient once who came in with blurred vision, some vague symptoms, and I wanted to dilate his eyes and look in the back. He was in a hurry, didn’t know if he had time for it, so I insisted. I looked back and he had swollen optic nerves. He had papilledema.

After further talking with him, he said he had been sick 3 or 4 days before and he was dizzy and he passed out and he hit his head. He didn’t want to tell me that. I said, “I’m calling an ambulance and you’re going to the ER right now.” He ended up having an epidural hematoma.

He had emergent surgery and he was fine. I’m not trying to make myself a hero, but my point is that he may have had some headaches as well, but vague symptoms. But because I was able to look in and see the signs of high pressure in the brain, I basically saved his life.

Doing things like that is not only really cool, it makes me feel good that I was able to help someone. Not to trivialize any of the other things I do, glasses, contacts, laser vision surgery, that’s all important too. But I really enjoy being able to help the overall person, the overall patient. That’s a really rewarding aspect of being an ophthalmologist.

I also, in general, just enjoy spending time with my patients. I try to get to know them, “How are you? How are the kids? Let’s catch up.”

When there are concerning problems with people, I try to talk to them and have a decent bedside manner. If I’m explaining bad news, I try to be a good person as well as a good doctor. Because patients, when they’re having problems, a lot of times they’re scared and they want someone to explain it to them exactly what’s going to happen. Sometimes maybe there’s nothing you can do for them, that’s unfortunate, but at least if they know that you care about them, that will take the edge off of it.

That’s why I enjoy being a doctor and being an ophthalmologist.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

Yeah, that’s so nice to hear. I know that having a doctor that you feel comfortable with and talking with is of utmost importance when you’re going through something.

In 2021, you were working at a facility, and this was during the COVID pandemic and it was mandated by the facility that everyone had to get the COVID-19 vaccine. You applied for religious and medical exemptions, but those were denied, leaving you with the decision to either get the vaccine or leave your role.

What was that experience like and what advice would you give to people who are facing a difficult but important decision like you were in this situation?

Eric Saunders, MD:

Obviously, COVID was a very difficult time in many ways. The situation that happened to me, I know happened to many other physicians, healthcare workers, but other people put in the situation where they were essentially mandated to take a vaccine.

What happened with me was, I found myself in a position where it was offered and then eventually, they said you had to take it. There was a lot of uncertainty with me with that situation.

Again, as I have done many times in my life, instead of turning to just books and internet and my own brain, I prayed about it. I asked God, “I know the situation and I need you to tell me if I should take this or not.” Down in my heart, he told me not to take it. I said I would honor that.

I even went to my wife, I said, “I respect your opinion. You know they’re going to fire me if I don’t take this.” She supported me, as did many other people. I stood my ground and I didn’t take it.

I gave them my medical background for a medical exemption, and I gave them a well-thought-out from the heart religious exemption that I wrote myself. It dragged on for a few months, “I’m sure this will be fine. We should be able to accommodate you.”

Then it became, “I don’t think we can do that.” Some angry phone calls, some expletives from the other side, “Just take the blank-blank shot; what about your family?” I said, “I prayed about it and I’m not going to do it. You can fire me. It doesn’t matter what you do.”

I stood my ground, and they fired me. There was some periods, once I had left the job, because of my contract, I couldn’t work close to the hospital for 2 years. I had to find some temporary work during that 2 years far enough away.

That was tough because it didn’t really come close to matching my income or time at the other place. I’m not going to lie, financially it was tough and there was a place that I wanted to practice from the get-go that I had to wait the 2 years. That was a very trying time and I’m in a better place now.

But that was, without question, one of the most stressful segments of my life. Not to be a cliche, sleepless nights, tears, anger, I’m not perfect. I was very angry at a lot of people and my situation for a long time.

Forgiveness is a big part of something like this. That’s hard, forgiving someone or some group of people or some situation. It’s tough because at first you resist because you feel that when you’re forgiving someone, that you’re letting them off the hook.

In reality, that’s not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is doing it for yourself. You’re saying, “I don’t condone what you did. I’m still upset by it, but I’m choosing to let it go for me. I’m going to stop thinking about it and I’m not going to hate you anymore. In fact, I’m going to love you and I’m going to ask God to forgive you.”

That’s very hard. But I feel like I’ve managed to be able to, in my heart, forgive those people and what happened to me and move on. But it was a tough couple of years. It’s still a little bit tough today. I haven’t fully recovered, but I’m working on it, and I know I’m in a better place now.

I’m currently working in Ridgewood at the Liva Eye Center under Dr. Douglas Liva and it’s really a dream situation in every way. It’s a privately owned practice by Dr. Liva, not owned by a hospital, not owned by private equity. It’s a standalone practice. Those are rare these days, as you know, a lot of practices are hospital-owned by private equity.

Dr. Liva built the building that the practice is in, he runs the practice. He’s been in practice for decades, as was his father. He was willing to take me into his practice the day after I left, but I couldn’t go there because it was too close.

I’m there now, and in the end it’s a better situation. I am building up my practice. It’s been very hard to find my patients who are at my former practice, even with the internet. A lot of my patients are coming in, “I just found you. I didn’t know where you were.” I’m trying to find them all again and slowly build things up and get back to where I was being very busy.

But I really enjoy where I am. The people, the patients, the staff, very friendly. Dr. Liva has bent over backwards to make it a very good experience. It would be an understatement to say, I’m grateful for where I am today. I know I’m in a better place and things are getting better, so I’m happy now.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

That’s great to hear. The journey to rebuilding, I can imagine, has been really tough.

I really enjoy the sentiment that you share about forgiveness because I think that’s a universal, the situation that people can understand, just not wanting to carry around some of those emotions. Choosing to forgive for your own well-being, your own mental health, your own emotional being. That’s a very poignant point you make.

My Hero is all about recognizing those who’ve embraced life’s challenges and turned it into something powerful and hopeful for others. Can you share ways in which you have not let your own obstacles define you?

Eric Saunders, MD:

Well, being born without legs, things growing up like sports were a challenge. I tried not to let that get in the way. There were some things I couldn’t do, but I tried to find ways that I could compete in sports. I couldn’t play football, I couldn’t run track, but I could wrestle. You have to find out what your gifts are and what you can do in life.

The adversities that I experienced during COVID was a tragedy in some senses, but the adversity that I overcame was I’m really in a better place. I don’t know that I would be where I am today if COVID, if what happened to me hadn’t happened.

Not that I wouldn’t have been able to help a lot of patients, but I would’ve been in a situation where I would not ever be able to own a practice. I would be working for someone else. I’m in a better place because of what happened to me. I have to be grateful that I went through the fire and I came through it.

My advice to other people would be, if you have a situation that’s tough to overcome, the key is to just don’t give up. If you believe in God, hopefully you’ll have faith in him and pray to him. If you don’t believe in God, try him out and at least listen to your gut. Listen to an inner voice, which I feel is God, listen to your gut. If something doesn’t feel right, stand your ground and just have faith that it will work out. Basically, just don’t give up. We can’t give up. You have to move forward. That would be my advice.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

Absolutely. That’s great. Who is a person you find inspirational?

Eric Saunders, MD:

I’ve had so many people in my life that it would be a list of people, my parents, my wrestling coach.

I’m going to say my wife, Monica, because I’ve been with her now coming up almost, married 20 years. I don’t mean to be a cliche, but she’s been my rock. During the times when I had issues during the COVID period, that’s just one. She really stood behind me and she’s really a compass for me. She’s such a good person. Beautiful as well.

There’s just been many times in my life where she got me back on track, gave me advice, helped me to be a better husband, a better father. I think I’ve done a pretty great job, but we’re not perfect. She just really helps me stay on track.

I do that for her as well. But together, we’re just such a great team. I say I wouldn’t be where I am today in life without God and Jesus. I definitely know God used Monica to help me in life. I would say as a person, the most inspirational overall would be my wife. Monica.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

A final question we ask of all of our interviewees at My Hero: what would you tell your younger self, knowing what you know now?

Eric Saunders, MD:

As much as I’ve gone through, I wouldn’t change anything because I’m very happy where I am today. Maybe I would give a little warning, “Okay, you’re going to go through some things. You’re going to go through this. Not to scare you, my younger self, but just hang in there and have faith and pray and things are going to work out.”

I think it would just be to reassure my younger self that some storms are coming your way, here’s what they are. Maybe just to prepare myself better. But I don’t think I would change anything, because like I said, the things that I went through helped to shape my character and who I am.

My younger son, Charlie, once, I think he was 12, he said, “Dad, would you go back and would you change? Would you be born with legs?” I said, “No, I’m fine with the way I am.” He said, “I knew you would say that.”

Kids are so innocent, but he’s absolutely right. No, I would not say, “God, let’s try this over again, being born with legs,” because I love my life and I have no regrets. People ask me, “What would your life have been with legs?” It would’ve been, I presume I would still be a good person, but it would be completely different. I couldn’t even predict what I’d be doing or where I would be.

The short answer is I have no regrets. I wouldn’t do anything over. I would just have a pep talk with my younger self and just prepare them for what’s coming and to have faith.

Kerri Fitzgerald:

Dr. Saunders, thank you so much for sharing your experience. We know that this story is going to be really impactful for a lot of listeners, and so thank you for partnering with us to share this.

Eric Saunders, MD:

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

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Connect with Dr. Eric Saunders:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eyedoctoreric/

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