Sister Jocelyn Edathil of the Sisters of the Imitation of Christ (Bethany Sisters) is unique in at least two ways. First of all, she is a member of the India-based Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and on Aug. 6, 2016, when she took her vows at St Vincent De Paul Syro-Malankara Catholic Cathedral in Elmont, New York she became the first professed woman religious of her Church who was born in North America.

She also has the unusual distinction of being a hospitalist, a practicing doctor on staff at Philadelphia’s Temple University Hospital.

There, working in shifts seven days on, seven days off, she wears her veil and the traditional white habit of her congregation under a white lab coat while making her rounds, lovingly caring for the corporal needs of the sick.

And yes, if they wish, she will pray with them and give them spiritual comfort. For Sister Jocelyn, her twin vocations are a blessing. At age 37, it has been a long journey. Her mother, Rajamma Edathil, came to America from Kerala in 1975 and is now a retired ICU nurse. Her dad, Philip Edathil, arrived in 1977 and is a real estate broker. The second of four children, her younger brother, Michael, who was ordained in 2013, is the first American-born Syro-Malankara priest. But the seed of Sister Jocelyn’s own vocation goes back almost three decades. When she was 9 her uncle, Father George, an India-born priest, told her she should become a sister.

“I said I wasn’t good enough,” Sister Jocelyn recalls. “He passed away in 1996, and that was solidified my vocation, thinking about his as a life well-lived.” “I always loved science,” she said. “I think of it as the way the Lord communicates his message to us. My parents encouraged me to study medicine, but I didn’t do it at first.”