Alumni Stories: Brian Schonewald

From the soccer field to the hospital floor, this PCA alumnus has carried the lessons of mentorship, perseverance, and faith with him every step of the way. Currently in the final stretch of his internal medicine residency, with plans to pursue a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care, he reflects on the journey that brought him here—from his time at PCA to medical school and beyond. In this conversation, he shares how his experiences shaped his calling, the teachers and coaches who influenced him, and his vision for the future in medical missions.

Read on to learn more about Brian’s journey.

You have had a pretty successful career. Tell us what you are currently involved in now.

I’m still definitely at the beginning of my career, I always tell people out of the 11 years of training that I must do after graduating from college, I am six of the years through them. I did my medical school training in Camden, NJ. I was living in Philadelphia at that time. Now I am in Philadelphia married to Holly and father of Joshua while also a resident physician in internal medicine. Essentially to practice fully as a full-fledged physician you have to complete Med school residency. Then most people go on to do a fellowship as well. I am six months away from completing my residency in internal medicine and then I’ll be staying at my current program as I have the opportunity to be one of the chief residents to run the program for a year and then I’ll do a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine. Then I could be anywhere in the country for fellowship.

Let’s take it back to 2009 when you were first enrolled at PCA in 8th grade, do you have any memories that stand out for you?

My goodness. So many memories. The memories that have stuck with me the most are from high school in the fall. I played soccer and basketball at PCA. Now every time the seasons change, no matter where I’m living, and I smell fresh cut grass in the fall, I instantly am taken back to my time on the soccer team. Even though soccer was a sport that I really only played to get in shape for basketball. The coach that we had at that time, Coach Monahan, was somebody who was an incredible leader of men and he just took it upon himself to challenge and encourage us in our lives and our faith outside of playing soccer. I grew so much from his leadership, and he was incredibly hard on us from a physical standpoint. So, I always entered into basketball season in the best shape of my life, but also being so refreshed by the camaraderie and mentorship that he provided. And so, every time the seasons change, I flashback to walking across the gorgeous soccer fields at PCA with some of my good friends and knowing that we were going to get destroyed at practice. Being so excited to get to spend time with each other and with coach and growing together and learning together. I love my friends that I had, but the mentorship and the different teachers that I had were a huge part of why I look so fondly on my time at PCA. Mrs. Shevenell was impactful. Kathy Watson was my biology teacher for my first couple years of high school and her and her husband ended up moving to Papa New Guinea to work as missionaries and I remember how much she loved teaching, she loved PCA and I was heartbroken when she left her job to move overseas. She had been an incredible mentor to me, as I was thinking about pursuing biology in college, with the goal of becoming a doctor and that was a time when I was processing what role missions might have in my life. I had gone on a couple short term trips, but nothing all that significant. And Kathy and her husband’s sacrifice had a huge impact on me. Seeing her willingness to give up something that she deeply loved for something that she was being called to made me pray thoughtfully about whether missions was going to be a part of my life as well long term. It is ultimately what led me towards continuing this path of medicine with the goal of eventually moving overseas to do full-time medical missions is still my goal and is how I met my wife, Holly. She was one of the only other believers in my medical school and also had a huge passion for the unreached and also for committing her life to medical missions. This is something that we’re still very committed to. Our dream is to be living in an unreached area of the world. Hopefully working as physicians, I would love to continue to be in medicine as a medical educator, working with some sort of secondary training program in an unreached area.

Do you feel like your time at PCA influenced your relationship with Christ?

100%. It is one of the reasons why I hope that Joshua will have the opportunity to attend a school like PCA. My relationship with the Lord changed a lot over the course of my time in high school. I entered high school having always considered myself a Christian and having had Christian parents and always attending church and always viewed it as something that was important to my life. But I don’t think it really influenced the course of my life until high school. I started to realize that my faith was not something that I did, but it was the most important part of me and the most important part of my life. The teachers at PCA, through their faithful mentorship and prayer, gave me a perspective of, ‘wow, these really thoughtful, wise individuals have made their faith the cornerstone of their life and it’s the reason they’re teaching and mentoring.’ And so that really, really positively impacted me. Mr. Foley with his wisdom. Mr. Pease and Doctor Gamble with their thoughtfulness and encouragement. Mr. Beal, I was so intimidated by him, but he’s just the sweetest guy, but I was terrified to disappoint him. He was kind, but had high expectations and it was hard to read as a highschooler. His faith was so palpable in terms of shaping everything that he did. I genuinely think having these leaders on the sports teams as well. Seeing these wonderful people that I respected whose faiths were such an important part of their lives was something that really impacted me as I was processing through my own faith and its importance. It’s what led me towards going to a Christian College in Grove City College, which continued to build on so much of what I had started to process through during my time at PCA

What is one piece of advice that you would pass on to the current PCA Upper School students?

1. PCA and the education that me and my classmates received genuinely prepared us for anything that we wanted to pursue. That is not something to be taken for granted. When I was in high school, I was not thinking about, “is this preparing me for my future?” But I genuinely think the educators at PCA are so wise and dedicated and the classes are challenging, and they really do prepare you for college and afterwards.

2. I would encourage PCA students to just take advantage of the incredible mentors that are available at PCA. As you travel through life it is a lot harder to find mentorship and people who are older and wiser who care deeply about you and are willing to invest their time and energy and prayer to be able to encourage you and share advice and wisdom from their lives. I just feel so grateful that that I had that at PCA and that just there were so many people who invested in me in such significant ways.