Patients came with problems that medicine alone could not solve.

A family worried about land.

Someone needed help understanding paperwork.

A household faced poverty.

A woman needed advice.

A child required schooling.

A patient needed medicine but also food, clean water, or safer housing.

Susan became a trusted intermediary.

The National Library of Medicine describes her as offering financial advice and helping resolve family disputes in addition to treating illness.

This broad role explains why her later activism cannot be separated from her medical career.