There Are Two Doctors in the House

When two football players dropped to the ground in pain during a frosh-sophomore game at Reseda High last week, Dr. Brewster and Dr. Brewster raced onto the field offering assistance.

The injuries weren’t serious and the players quickly discovered they were in competent hands.

Indeed, the Brewsters are good doctors--and also an usual team.

They are not father and son. They are not brothers. They are a rarity among rarities--a husband and wife medical tandem.

“Hopefully, we’re not going to have any marital disputes,” Dr. Scott Brewster, 28, joked about the partnership with his wife, Dr. Erin Brewster, 27.

If ever two people were destined to find each other and become true partners, it’s the Brewsters. They were sweethearts at Notre Dame High. He was a wide receiver, she was a swimmer. They were a year apart in school but started dating during Scott’s senior year.

“There was a little spark,” said Rob Thomas, their Notre Dame biology teacher.

Neither had dreams of becoming a doctor, but their lives quickly became intertwined.

Scott went off to UC Santa Barbara, Erin joined him a year later. Scott enrolled at Northwestern Medical School, Erin followed.

Scott received a residency in emergency medicine at UCLA Medical Center, Erin joined him.

“It looks like somewhere in the stars there was meant to be magic,” Thomas said of the Brewsters.

Scott and Erin were married in 1993. Every step of the way, the Brewsters have helped each other.

“It’s been amazing all the hurdles we’ve actually had to come over,” Scott said.

They both work in the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center as they move toward completing their residency requirements.

Over 12-hour shifts five or six days a week, they make life and death decisions. Gunshot wounds, heart attacks, car accident victims--they face medical emergencies that require quick, precise responses.

The stress can be enormous, but these two ex-athletes thrive on the intoxicating atmosphere and challenge of emergency-room medicine.

“You’ve got to like being put into that situation,” Scott said. “It’s a lot like a game situation. It’s pressure, it’s excitement and you don’t get bored.

“It doesn’t matter what kind of person you are--when you have someone who comes in bleeding, dying, their heart is stopped and you have to get them back, you get stressed out.

“The first couple of times, you’re like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s hard to think straight. But the more you do it, the more comfortable you get.”

Said Erin: “You just have to deal with it as it comes. I keep my stress internalized. I’m stressing on the inside, but I don’t show it.”

The Brewsters rarely work together in the emergency room. Sometimes they go two to three days without seeing each other.

When they’re together, they try not to bring up work. But they know how to comfort each other after a particularly grueling case.

“We don’t always have to talk about it, but there are other times where it’s nice we have each other to fall back on more for support and understanding what the other one’s gone through during the day,” Erin said.

Volunteering to help provide medical assistance at a high school football game is a way for Scott to relieve stress while also reviving the memories of his playing days.

“The whole pregame, getting into your pads, I miss it so much,” he said. “It’s nice to be out here because I get that feeling again. If I was going to be volunteering or doing anything, I’d rather be out here because I enjoy it so much.”

Scott’s football career ended during his junior season at UC Santa Barbara when he suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament on a kickoff return.

The experience inspired him to become a doctor. He finished No. 1 in his Northwestern Medical School class of 1995.

Now his biggest thrill is sitting in the stands watching his brother, Jonathon, a sophomore quarterback at Notre Dame High.

“I have a nervous breakdown if I can’t go to a game that my brother’s in,” he said.

Said Erin: “Our life revolves around [Jonathon’s] football and basketball games.”

Jonathon suddenly has his own personal physicians. Hamstring pull, call Dr. Brewster. Runny nose, call Dr. Brewster. Sunburn, call Dr. Brewster.

But who’s the better Dr. Brewster? “I don’t know,” said Jonathon, a true diplomat.

The Brewsters are living in Studio City, renting the home Erin grew up in. They joke that by marrying they have doubled their debt from college loans.

“We’re running negative right now,” Scott said.

Scott is the one who insists on volunteering at high school football games even though he is aware that the death of a Reseda High player last year left the doctor involved facing a civil lawsuit.

“It’s a little bit scary,” he said. “For us, we know so many people who have been sued and as physicians, it’s part of the profession. But if you’re confident in what you know and confident in your abilities, which I think both of us are, we hope we will not do anything to put any kids in danger.

“There’s always going to be those cases where even if you do everything right, something can happen. You just can’t avoid that. We’re in one of the higher risk fields. Every day, we send people out of the emergency room knowing there’s always a possibility we missed something.”

Said Erin: “Every day, you learn something new. We’ll always be learning. There’s always going to be a new experience, a new situation, but as you go, you use all the knowledge you’ve built up to deal with each new situation.”

Scott seems capable of handling any situation except the realization that he’s no longer the best athlete in his family.

“I kept saying I was the fastest in the family and then [Jonathon] beat me in a sprint,” Scott said.

Scott, you might also have trouble even closer to home.

Your wife reportedly beat you onto the field, too.

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Eric Sondheimer’s local column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at (818) 772-3422.