Local Doc on the Block
It was stunning news. I listened with disbelief as my colleague described how a patient of ours, in whom we had uncovered a host of serious diseases over a few years, was now newly diagnosed with cancer after an incidental scan. In addition, his social supports had been eroded and I...
[This is the second post in a series on becoming a Christian physician, originally written for the ESN blog. The series began with Do You Want to Be a Doctor?] “Why do you want to work in healthcare?” “I want to help people.” This dialogue is the most common conversation...
[This was originally written years ago for a Christian campus publication, Revisions. It is one of my favorite reflections and will appear on the ESN blog tomorrow.] The patient came in for a refill of pain medications even though it was his first visit to the family medicine practice. The front...
Originally a guest post for the Emerging Scholars Network (a ministry of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship): One day a number of concerned mothers met with the minister to express their frustration and anger over the unseemly conduct of a particular boy in Sunday School. They did not want their children...
Note: Originally written several years ago. My mom looks for Reasons the way some people look for spare change on the ground. She always has an eye out for them, an ear cocked to hear the faintest whisper of a consequence or a lesson. Most were simple illustrations of basic...
I am not exactly sure of what prompted me to do it, but I began keeping a tally of all the pronouncements I have done. I never really knew this before, but pronouncements are done in a remarkably simple and impersonal way. Most patients who die in the hospital do...
There are many reasons why I love medicine. One of them is the ability to dig into the real “stuff” of human existence: life, death, suffering, love, pain, loss, redemption. Another is the speed by which I can get down and dirty. In less than fifteen minutes, I can go from...
To heal by tertiary intention is to leave the wound open on purpose; you see it most often in the gritty sort of traumas that leave large chunks of dirt and debris behind, embedded in the still-injured tissue. People often wonder why this is done, as it is natural within...
