A Family Doctor’s Search for Salvation

One October night, Dr. Greg Gulbransen accidentally killed his two-year-old son. His response to the tragedy is a study in grace. Jonathan Rothman profiles a pediatrician who never stops moving:

“There are actually scales that psychiatrists use to quantify life stress,” he said. He recalled one from medical school: “‘Have you lost a job? Are you divorced? Have you lost a child?’ They don’t even talk about ‘Have you killed your own child?’ That’s not even on the list.” He told me this on the second floor of his office, in a sitting room he’d redecorated about ten years ago, after the practice had reached a stable level of success. Surrounded by photography books, four American Girl dolls regarded us from an alcove. In the community, the accident has given Gulbransen a special role; families who suffer traumatic losses sometimes seek him out. He gives the dolls to their children.

Leslie is Jewish, so Cameron’s funeral was held three days after his death. Anguished and ashamed, Gulbransen saw a therapist who advised him to take a few weeks off. Instead, he went to work the next day. Flowers were heaped on the steps to the office. A postman, passing by, asked what they were for.

“I have no idea,” Gulbransen said, hurrying inside.

He told the surprised staff that he was ready to see patients. A mother waiting in the exam room had heard what had happened—everyone had—and stared at him in silence. “Then I said, ‘Let’s go,’ ” he recalled. “And everybody just knew, Don’t talk about it. And I just started working hard.”

Therapeutic workaholism is part of Gulbransen’s altruism. Ever since the accident, he said, he’d struggled with the feeling that he didn’t deserve to be alive when Cameron was dead. “You’re constantly, constantly asking yourself, ‘Are you good enough?’ ” he told me. “That’s why a lot of people turn to drugs or alcohol after these accidents, or get divorced.” (He and Leslie are happily married; their daughter, Julia, was born the year after Cameron died.) “I’m lucky to have this office, where I can keep reaffirming that I’m good enough for kids,” he went on. “It becomes a dopamine drip.” He almost never takes weekends off, and his vacations are rare, indulged in to please his family. The dopamine wanes. If Gulbransen doesn’t do something of value once or twice a day, he starts to ruminate. “Feeling needed, feeling useful, feeling important—they’ve helped me hide the demons,” he said. He told me how, on a recent day, he’d correctly diagnosed four kids with pneumonia: “Drip.” Mothers marvel at how he makes house calls on Sundays. If you text him late at night, he replies.