In the first post of this series, I was ruminating about a patient who had a rapid decline in health and social circumstances, culminating in a recent scan that showed the possibility of cancer even while he was struggling with homelessness. It was a bleak situation that caught me off guard because I was not expecting it and was grieved to think of what it would be like for him to die alone. He has since died. There is a picture and a story making rounds on the internet about the grief of physicians. An EMT … [Read more...] about Failing Faithfully: Created, Fallen, and Waiting
Failing Faithfully: The Futility of Medicine (Scholar’s Compass)
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 thought about what it would be like for him to die from a vicious terminal disease while alone and homeless. He would not be the first patient for me to watch die in such a way. To be a physician is, in many ways, an exercise in … [Read more...] about Failing Faithfully: The Futility of Medicine (Scholar’s Compass)
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 compensatory mechanism into extremis. He wanted to fight and live, but there was little left for the ICU to offer. I had been pleading with him for days to consider hospice and a more peaceable passing at home where he could be … [Read more...] about Death and Resurrection
Reasons: Why I am a Christian Part 2
Every year, the translator at our pediatric hospital asks this question: What are the four hardest words to translate? He will pause for a moment and then say, Your child is dead. Every time I hear it, I wonder how many times he has had to say that phrase. Every year, I think the tally must be a little higher. Fixed in every medical provider's mind are similar moments of unsettling and stunning grief. Death, crippling injury, and disability rarely happen in the dramatic TV show ways. They are ordinary and … [Read more...] about Reasons: Why I am a Christian Part 2
Reasons: Why I am a Christian
"How can you believe in God and science at the same time?" Even though I am rarely asked this question so plainly, it is often implied in conversation. Many atheistic advocates think that there is a conflict between the two. They may suspect that a belief in the supernatural is used primarily to explain the physical world with non-physical means and to "fill in the gaps" for conundrums for which there is no better or more reasonable determination. They may believe that beliefs are driven by a search for meaning … [Read more...] about Reasons: Why I am a Christian