At Texas Children\u2019s Hospital, just down the street from University of St. Thomas, alumnus Thomas Mendez \u201909 uses his skills as an attorney to help care for patients. Seeing cases like a child with asthma living in a home with mold, a patient with special needs who turns 18 and still needs guardianship protection, or parents facing eviction while their child receives life-saving treatments, Mendez solves legal issues for patients as part of providing holistic healthcare.<\/p>\n
Mendez is a medical-legal partnership attorney, embedded with hospital social workers and working closely with the TCH medical team. While his office is at TCH, he is employed by Houston Volunteer Lawyers, the nonprofit arm of The Houston Bar Association, to recruit and train pro-bono attorneys to represent patients and families who need legal remedies.<\/p>\n
Seeing patients struggle with complex medical diagnoses is difficult. That\u2019s when he embraces his Catholic faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cBishop Barron says one of the hardest challenges to grapple with is sin and evil in the world \u2014 people who are suffering and have done nothing to deserve this,\u201d Mendez said. \u201cThat\u2019s one reason I love the Catholic faith, because we embrace that suffering. You don\u2019t have the resurrection unless you have the crucifixion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendez said many people he works with are one tragedy away from their whole life unraveling. In recognizing their suffering, he is able to see Christ in his clients.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot more people than you think just get by,\u201d he said. \u201cThe resiliency of people is incredible. They just get through, and they also are joyful.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Mendez_Pope_Edited\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.stthom.edu\/encounter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/06\/Mendez_Pope_Edited-1024x683.jpg\")
Thomas Mendez and his wife, Sarah, met Pope Francis for the sposi novelli newlywed blessing while on their honeymoon to Rome in January 2019. Attending University of St. Thomas allowed him to learn about his faith in the context of the modern world.<\/p><\/div>\n
A Desire for Connection in the Church and Around the World<\/h2>\n
A Spanish-speaker, Mendez\u2019s father is from Colombia, but he learned Spanish in college and polished his language skills while pursuing a year of graduate studies in Argentina on a Rotary Foundation scholarship. As part of his studies in international political economy, he took his first law class.<\/p>\n
He planned to travel for a year after his time in Argentina, and spent time in Sri Lanka and Bangkok, until his grandmother became sick. Then he decided to stay closer to home and follow in the footsteps of his mother, alumna Terri Clarke Mendez \u201992, who went to law school while the younger Mendez was in elementary school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought the law was black and white, and I realized that there was a lot of opportunity for creativity and helping people,\u201d Mendez said.<\/p>\n
Usually dressed down in slacks and a dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves to make his clients feel comfortable, he is mindful about seeing the dignity of people he helps.<\/p>\n
His interest in making connections started in high school on mission trips. It continued at UST as he led the MicroCredit Program, now known as the Social Entrepreneurship Program, and helped connect people who needed material assistance with students, entrepreneurs and donors.<\/p>\n
\u201cUST gave me a good liberal arts education in international studies and the Honors Program,\u201d he said. \u201cI learned to think critically and make connections across disciplines, and that\u2019s really important to what I do now. It\u2019s not a tangible skill, but it\u2019s the most important skill I learned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking classes like Fr. Joseph Pilsner\u2019s Social Justice in the Catholic Church also helped him understand those experiences in light of Catholic social teaching, seeing the struggles people face and how members of the Church can carry faith into the modern world.<\/p>\n
\u2018Faith is a Journey, Not a Place\u2019<\/h2>\n
While in college, Mendez said he was Catholic nominally, but the seeds planted there continue to bloom. In January 2019 he and his wife, Sarah, met Pope Francis while on their honeymoon to Rome, and last fall they welcomed a daughter, Maxine.<\/p>\n
Through it all, Mendez said faith is a journey, not a place, and he is learning to trust God and find joy like his clients, even when he doesn\u2019t know the path.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing I try to do \u2014 and I fail at every day \u2014 is to do everything I can do to the best of my ability and trust the rest to God,\u201d he said. \u201cSeemingly bad things can turn into great things.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At Texas Children\u2019s Hospital, just down the street from UST, alumnus Thomas Mendez \u201909 uses his skills as an attorney to help care for patients. In his work, Mendez solves legal issues for patients as part of providing holistic healthcare. Learn how UST helped shape him and strengthen his faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[272,235,233,234,236,273,11,232,231],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-featured-stories","tag-272","tag-b-a-in-international-studies","tag-houston-volunteer-lawyers","tag-rotary-foundation-scholar","tag-sposi-novelli","tag-summer-2020-issue","tag-summer-issue","tag-texas-childrens-hospital","tag-thomas-mendez-00"],"yoast_head":"\n
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