[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 is the most common conversation people will have about a career in medicine. The way we think about healthcare professionals tends towards the poignant and provocative: heroic paramedics and EMTs in ambulances, austere physicians and pharmacists and lab researchers in crisp white coats, dutiful and deeply … [Read more...] about Helping People Is Not Enough
Health Care
Do Doctors Make Bank?
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, throwing it high and watching it bounce among the electrical wires, tree branches, and car windows before skittering along the pavement to be chased endlessly by the smaller children. Others were riding their bicycles for show, popping up the front wheel as they furiously pumped their pedals to … [Read more...] about Do Doctors Make Bank?
Shootings and Samaritans
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. I found out about the Boston bombing while working a long shift in the hospital. While examining patients in their rooms, I couldn't help but sneak peeks at their TV sets as the chaos unfolded. Often, I simply stopped what I was doing and watched the news alongside them in silence. We … [Read more...] about Shootings and Samaritans
Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace
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 their final moments, have shoved long needles into pulseless vessels, have held the hands of weeping mothers and wives and sons, have electrified bodies on hallway floors, have carried severed limbs and have watched blood and vomit and blood fly through the air during final resuscitation attempts. I have stayed … [Read more...] about Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace
Hands and Feet
[This was originally written for a Christian campus publication, Revisions.] The patient came in for a refill of pain medications even though it was his first visit to the family medicine practice. The front desk staff had a letter for the supervising resident from the patient's previous doctor, which the resident read out loud to me: “Due to difficulties in our doctor-patient relationship, we regret to inform you that we can no longer serve as your primary care physician office.” The resident's eyes widened … [Read more...] about Hands and Feet