Tag: philippians

  • Death and Resurrection

    Death and Resurrection

    He was a young man, and I could see fear in his eyes as he gripped the railings of the bed and struggled to breathe, sucking in heavily through the plastic mask feeding him oxygen. His body was wasting away from cancer, and the infections that had crept into his lungs were now forcing every…

  • Do You Want to Be a Doctor?

    Do You Want to Be a Doctor?

    “I want to be a doctor.  How do I do it?” As a teenager, I was very shy and very awkward.  Talking to strangers was a painful and anxiety-laden task, and I didn’t like to talk to strangers any longer than necessary.  So when a pediatrician asked me, at a routine office visit, if I…

  • Match Day: On Calling

    Match Day: On Calling

    Friday will be Match Day.  On that day, thousands of medical students across the USA will be given a sealed envelope containing a description of where they will be going for residency. At noon, in every medical school, they will gather to simultaneously open those envelopes. These students have spent months applying and interviewing for…

  • Selection Bias: Statistical Integrity in Christian Community

    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 exposed to this child and…

  • Never Normal

    Never Normal

    I got up before the alarm yesterday even though my sleep was fitful and restless.  Though it was hard for me to know for sure, I was fairly certain that a series of gunshots had woken me up in the middle of the night, and that what had followed was a series of nightmares about…

  • Entitlement

    One of the most difficult things I’ve struggled with since moving here has been a sense of entitlement.  That word is not one I ever hear from those living here, mainly because it’s never used in a positive context.  It is typically in reference to “handouts to the poor” and finds its anchoring in food…