InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network
If medicine is about the alleviation of suffering and the postponement of death, is not all of our work ultimately futile? In a society that idolizes success and hides the dying and dead away from full view, what message can physicians give?Read more…
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.Read more…
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 awayRead more…
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 howRead more…
“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 theRead more…
Perhaps the most difficult part of writing a personal statement is the beginning, that space in which you determine what you are going to write.Read more…
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to take my girlfriend for a date through the Pulitzer Prize photography exhibition in Philadelphia. She is much more artistically-minded than I and we had talked before about visiting aRead more…
Few things arouse human emotion as strongly as babies do. They are one of the few remaining cultural icons of innocence, operating with the simplest and purest of human feelings. Read more…
I had never been to a Black Friday shopping spree before. The thought of camping out for hours in the chilling pre-dawn night always seemed perverse to me . . . but that was before I started browsing the Black Friday ads and listening to stories of stunning deals and bargains.Read more…
The work of the Christian Personal Statement, therefore, is not to explain a “unified theory” of our souls, but to construct a message that honors the sovereignty of Christ through the thoughtful alignment of secular goals with our personal beliefs.Read more…
I realized that the real work of writing a Personal Statement was to stop myself from selling myself.Read more…
[The third post in a series on becoming a Christian physician. Earlier posts are Do You Want to Be a Doctor? and Helping People Is Not Enough]. After working 24 hours on call in the pediatric ICU, I was exhausted. I wanted toRead more…
[This is the second post in a series on becoming a Christian physician. 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 isRead more…
“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 longerRead more…
First, before reading any further, make a list of the top three things you struggle with as a Christian. *** I used to have a great view of the back lot of our block. In the center is a littleRead more…
My housemate and I had an odd conversation about the Trayvon Martin case and the state of racism in the US today. It was strange, mainly because we occupy very different perspectives. My housemate is a humble, genuine, and deeply compassionateRead more…
Is there a real danger to the creep of utilitarianism in humanitarian thinking? Has the modern humanitarian world been reduced to little more than a competitive arena for non-profit interests? Last year, the Susan G. Komen Foundation imploded over scandalsRead more…
“Join Wall Street. Save the world.” This article went viral in my Facebook feed: [Jason] Trigg makes money just to give it away. His logic is simple: The more he makes, the more good he can do. He’s figured outRead more…
Is humanitarian need blind? In college, my Christian fellowship sponsored a fundraiser for victims of the Southeast Asian earthquake and tsunami, sending money to the explicitly Christian humanitarian relief organization World Vision. During the fundraiser, several people approached the coordinators andRead more…
Not long after graduating from college in 2005, I interviewed students on campus about their involvement in community service. All of them said that they spent less time doing community service in college than in high school, and most ofRead more…
Summer had finally emerged and we were sitting out on my front steps, enjoying the afternoon heat and watching some of the other kids play out on the street. Some of the teenagers were casually tossing a football around, throwingRead more…
I found out about the Newtown shooting while working in a pediatric clinic. In between seeing children with sore throats and rashes and sniffles, I would hover over the computer and read more about other children torn apart by gunfire.Read more…
In watching people die, I have come to better appreciate how much meaning people attach to a body and how death has a way of revealing our most elemental beliefs about what remains. I have talked to patients in theirRead more…
“There is something wrong with you,” she said, her face twisting in genuine disbelief and horror. “You are crazy.” I laughed, but comments like these were starting to get to me. At work, I’ve been sharing more and more aboutRead more…