I am of a generation that embraced space travel as children. At my childhood birthday party we had space cadet hats. Star Trek, Captain Kirk and Spock were all part of that. The race for space with the Russians. The One small step for man. I was at 1967 Montreal world fair and the Russian space ship was the attraction as much as Buckie Fuller's geodesic dome. NASA was all things scientific and genius.
I've seen all the Star Trek movies. I've always liked the philosophy. Exploration without interference. Some one asked if Star Wars compared and really, no. It's a war story whereas Star Trek has always been Discovery. It was 90000 leagues under the sea in space. It was Columbus and yes there were fights but the fights weren't as important as 'going where no man had gone before.'
So I've got my tickets to Into Darkness, the latest offering. I've enjoyed all the television shows from Captain Kirk, (Star Trek - the Original Series) to Captain Picard (Star Trek - the Next Generation) to Captain Janeaway (Star Trek - Voyageur) and I 'm sorry I forget the name of the really good looking captain. (ah--Jonathan Archer) . I liked Deep Space Nine but it's a whole different experience to the ships. I liked the xenoraces in that Enterprise Star Trek series.
Of them all I've loved Seven of Nine and the Borg most. What a powerful metaphor! The Betazoid are another metaphor, the intuitive counsellor. And the great Scottish engineer. Then the hologram doctor. I liked the gorgeous woman doctor of the Picard series too but most of all I liked Bones of Captain Kirk era. I'm most a fan of Kirk and Picard but I like the Janeaway and Chicote too.
There's the flying apartment building theme with Data, the crew and all the different species they encounter and have a board. It's got a kind of 'Friends' tv flavour to it. At times the humor, especially with Spock and Data, is Seinfeld at it's best.
Q is fabulous: a god gone rogue.
And so many of the Star Trek series are explorations of the ethics and ideas of science and philosophy and even theology. The movie really celebrates diversity and tolerance. The paramilitary 'ship captain' theme appeals to me as a 'ship's captain' but it doesn't translate well outside to the greater world. That's a limitation and an asset.
Oh well, I've got the tickets for the first weekend of this latest Star Trek movie. The movies have been always stupendous. I'm teletransported. My imagination is stretched. I'm excited.
Already friends and family have gone and are waxing poetic. Everyone is afraid to tell because there's so much mystery and suspense. I've avoided trailers and such. I'm going to see this free of influence.
Just me and my love of all the folk who bring me Star Trek , the ultimate space wagon train.
Addendum - the movie was spectacular!!!!!!!! Best part is the cast was like the blood grand children of the originals.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Sick
I've got a "cold". It began with post nasal drip and a sore throat. It's progressed to full sinuses, difficulty sleeping, fever, much more post nasal drip, plugged ears and fatigue.
I know biologically this is a product of a virus, most likely, possibly some streptococcus or staph bacteria allied with the virus which starts it. I expect the viral culprit is a Respiratory Synctial virus but it could be influenza.
My normal protective immunological system has been down a few counts because of the extra stress at work. Work is always stressful. It's the most stressful work I can imagine doing. Right up there with bomb disposal. People are like that. I'm always on egg shells but no one is perfect enough. It's a complaint society too and the people doing the most complaining aren't doing much else.
I've always figured sickness physically means I've not warded off the disease psychologically. Last week I felt like a guy surrounded by zombies in a vampire movie with cannibal extras. The beaurocracies were in a shark feeding frenzy. Point fingers and demanding perfection. I'm going to die not good enough for everyone all the time. My job is the complaints department of life and the people making most of the shit expect everyone else to keep the niggers down. Nigger in this case is no longer a racial slur but a metaphor for anyone marginalized. John Lennon once said Women are the Niggers of the World. Today it's beyond gender. It's the addicts, the mentally ill, the sick and those who treat them. The 'winners' would just as soon line them up against the wall and shoot them. They're holding back progress.
So I think my negativity and fear these last two weeks weren't sufficiently addressed. I spent a whole lot of time meditating and praying and being with other loving physicians cared for and caring but it wasn't enough.
Environmentalists would say it was just that I flew to Edmonton and back and took on the bad air in planes and the jet lag and all the other physical stresses of change of location without the slow aclimatisation that would occur if I'd driven my car up to Edmonton and back making the journey in days rather than hours. I thought of that but there was just too much pressure at work. Everyone complains I don't see them enough or they complain I don't see their family enough, or they complain I don't see their patients enough. I've read two letters from beaurocratic psychiatrists who stopped actually doing clinical work years ago say "it would be good if Dr. Hay would see these people a couple of times a week'. I'm seeing them every few months. I'm stretched to the breaking and all the resources are going to guys like these two high paid 'critics' who long ago pulled their thumbs out of the leaking dam and put them somewhere else. I'd like to have the family physician spend a half hour with the patient like I did but he's only got 3 minutes a patient today. Then the counsellors aren't paid to see anyone but the suicidal and my patients fall in between.
But now I'm sick. I know it's because of stress and self pity. I'm also sure I'm dying. I 've already gone through a check list of all the other physical ailments, aches and pain, really bad pain in joints and stuff you just say is aging and rheumatism but I'm a doctor so I can link all this together into rare tropical diseases, slow virus, brain tumours, sexually transmitted diseases acquired in the 60's, the late effects of smoking marijuana then too, lack of an essential vitamin, lack of sun, lack of rest, lack of sleep - my brain has thousands of rare diseases I've seen and touched stored there and I'm holding it back like I hold back a huge dog near a bitch in heat.
So I keep it simple. I've got a cold.
Now what to do.
If I had a salaried job and worked in an office and had the ability like all bureaucrats to push aside the work for a day or a week because it's really just paper - I'd not go into work , stay in bed, get better. But most of my patients are sicker than me, even psychologically which takes a lot of work and physically I'm really interested in the guy I did an ultrasound on his abdomen last week because it felt like the Alien. He wouldn't go to hospital so I'm the point man on his possible deadly disease. I just want to know what it is and when I do I can fix it. I love medicine. I love curing people. I really liked cutting but they don't let me have a knife any more. Prefer my mind. And that's only good because it saves lives but saving lives is increasingly politically incorrect. All the money in the system is moving into addicting addicts more, enabling, euthanasia and the really lucrative endeavour of abortion.
So I become depressed and fearful and it's a vicious cycle. All the sadness floods in when I'm sick. I want to curl up in a fetal position but there's work to do. I'm not infectious really. It's not like I'm doing surgery or dentistry. I'm at a distance. Thank God for Advil for sinuses and Reactine. I can put the symptoms at bay. Drink a lot of fluids.
And probably I'll just do the work I need to do and not do the other responsibilities. Now I've got to get in the shower and get all this sick sweat off me and fake it till I make it.
I've just got a 'cold' and we make too much of these things. But them I'm older and we always said 'pneumonia was at the old man's friend' because it kills sweetly. I'm morbid and my job is to be positive and reassuring and intelligent and caring and supportive and I miss the nurse who drove me home that night in the ER telling me I was sicker than all the children and she needed me the next day.
Fact is, I heard of a death yesterday and I'm devastated. It was so wrong. But at least that person so tormented will have peace. They'll be in heaven. But it's a tragedy and so sad and it's old news. Maybe because I'm getting older I'm more affected when I hear of the young dying. My friend's funeral was last week but I was working and didn't make it. We're to take care of the living. I would have liked to have been at the funeral though. He was a good man too.
Now I've got to rush. Always rushing. Never enough time for all the demands. The authorities are always upping the ante and putting deadlines on things that don't need deadlines then the man with cancer has a recurrence and there's no choice and the pregnant woman needs an answer she doesn't have any control over her time. I'm always prioritiizng but more and more bullies are telling me they need to go first. I'm tired of being threatened. One person threatens my life, another threatens my job, another threatens my security. Everyone demanding and pushing and I'm dreaming of being alone at sea again with a thousand miles and weeks between me and another human being. God that was good to get away from the beepers and cell phones. We talked about that on the weekend, the sense of relief we each feel when we can find a way off the grid.
It's an excuse to be imperfect. I may as well wear a bandage around my head, a black arm band as I let my nose drip and flaunt kleenex.
But I'm late. I must go. I'm not that sick. My guts aren't spilling out on the floor and CSF isn't leaking out of my head. Most of my colleagues are maimed and sick and injured and they're in the play, They celebrate the hockey players when they do that for a day but all the doctors I know are struggling with illness and yet caring for others too so they're my inspiration.
Sick is a metaphor. It's all in my mind anyway. Please Jesus be with me today and help me to do your bidding. Help me help others in your name. And please let this foggy headedness not interfere in my decisions or memory. Thank you that it's really nothing and not something like real morbidity and mortality, like the deaths I learned of this week. Be with them and their families in this time of grief.
I know biologically this is a product of a virus, most likely, possibly some streptococcus or staph bacteria allied with the virus which starts it. I expect the viral culprit is a Respiratory Synctial virus but it could be influenza.
My normal protective immunological system has been down a few counts because of the extra stress at work. Work is always stressful. It's the most stressful work I can imagine doing. Right up there with bomb disposal. People are like that. I'm always on egg shells but no one is perfect enough. It's a complaint society too and the people doing the most complaining aren't doing much else.
I've always figured sickness physically means I've not warded off the disease psychologically. Last week I felt like a guy surrounded by zombies in a vampire movie with cannibal extras. The beaurocracies were in a shark feeding frenzy. Point fingers and demanding perfection. I'm going to die not good enough for everyone all the time. My job is the complaints department of life and the people making most of the shit expect everyone else to keep the niggers down. Nigger in this case is no longer a racial slur but a metaphor for anyone marginalized. John Lennon once said Women are the Niggers of the World. Today it's beyond gender. It's the addicts, the mentally ill, the sick and those who treat them. The 'winners' would just as soon line them up against the wall and shoot them. They're holding back progress.
So I think my negativity and fear these last two weeks weren't sufficiently addressed. I spent a whole lot of time meditating and praying and being with other loving physicians cared for and caring but it wasn't enough.
Environmentalists would say it was just that I flew to Edmonton and back and took on the bad air in planes and the jet lag and all the other physical stresses of change of location without the slow aclimatisation that would occur if I'd driven my car up to Edmonton and back making the journey in days rather than hours. I thought of that but there was just too much pressure at work. Everyone complains I don't see them enough or they complain I don't see their family enough, or they complain I don't see their patients enough. I've read two letters from beaurocratic psychiatrists who stopped actually doing clinical work years ago say "it would be good if Dr. Hay would see these people a couple of times a week'. I'm seeing them every few months. I'm stretched to the breaking and all the resources are going to guys like these two high paid 'critics' who long ago pulled their thumbs out of the leaking dam and put them somewhere else. I'd like to have the family physician spend a half hour with the patient like I did but he's only got 3 minutes a patient today. Then the counsellors aren't paid to see anyone but the suicidal and my patients fall in between.
But now I'm sick. I know it's because of stress and self pity. I'm also sure I'm dying. I 've already gone through a check list of all the other physical ailments, aches and pain, really bad pain in joints and stuff you just say is aging and rheumatism but I'm a doctor so I can link all this together into rare tropical diseases, slow virus, brain tumours, sexually transmitted diseases acquired in the 60's, the late effects of smoking marijuana then too, lack of an essential vitamin, lack of sun, lack of rest, lack of sleep - my brain has thousands of rare diseases I've seen and touched stored there and I'm holding it back like I hold back a huge dog near a bitch in heat.
So I keep it simple. I've got a cold.
Now what to do.
If I had a salaried job and worked in an office and had the ability like all bureaucrats to push aside the work for a day or a week because it's really just paper - I'd not go into work , stay in bed, get better. But most of my patients are sicker than me, even psychologically which takes a lot of work and physically I'm really interested in the guy I did an ultrasound on his abdomen last week because it felt like the Alien. He wouldn't go to hospital so I'm the point man on his possible deadly disease. I just want to know what it is and when I do I can fix it. I love medicine. I love curing people. I really liked cutting but they don't let me have a knife any more. Prefer my mind. And that's only good because it saves lives but saving lives is increasingly politically incorrect. All the money in the system is moving into addicting addicts more, enabling, euthanasia and the really lucrative endeavour of abortion.
So I become depressed and fearful and it's a vicious cycle. All the sadness floods in when I'm sick. I want to curl up in a fetal position but there's work to do. I'm not infectious really. It's not like I'm doing surgery or dentistry. I'm at a distance. Thank God for Advil for sinuses and Reactine. I can put the symptoms at bay. Drink a lot of fluids.
And probably I'll just do the work I need to do and not do the other responsibilities. Now I've got to get in the shower and get all this sick sweat off me and fake it till I make it.
I've just got a 'cold' and we make too much of these things. But them I'm older and we always said 'pneumonia was at the old man's friend' because it kills sweetly. I'm morbid and my job is to be positive and reassuring and intelligent and caring and supportive and I miss the nurse who drove me home that night in the ER telling me I was sicker than all the children and she needed me the next day.
Fact is, I heard of a death yesterday and I'm devastated. It was so wrong. But at least that person so tormented will have peace. They'll be in heaven. But it's a tragedy and so sad and it's old news. Maybe because I'm getting older I'm more affected when I hear of the young dying. My friend's funeral was last week but I was working and didn't make it. We're to take care of the living. I would have liked to have been at the funeral though. He was a good man too.
Now I've got to rush. Always rushing. Never enough time for all the demands. The authorities are always upping the ante and putting deadlines on things that don't need deadlines then the man with cancer has a recurrence and there's no choice and the pregnant woman needs an answer she doesn't have any control over her time. I'm always prioritiizng but more and more bullies are telling me they need to go first. I'm tired of being threatened. One person threatens my life, another threatens my job, another threatens my security. Everyone demanding and pushing and I'm dreaming of being alone at sea again with a thousand miles and weeks between me and another human being. God that was good to get away from the beepers and cell phones. We talked about that on the weekend, the sense of relief we each feel when we can find a way off the grid.
It's an excuse to be imperfect. I may as well wear a bandage around my head, a black arm band as I let my nose drip and flaunt kleenex.
But I'm late. I must go. I'm not that sick. My guts aren't spilling out on the floor and CSF isn't leaking out of my head. Most of my colleagues are maimed and sick and injured and they're in the play, They celebrate the hockey players when they do that for a day but all the doctors I know are struggling with illness and yet caring for others too so they're my inspiration.
Sick is a metaphor. It's all in my mind anyway. Please Jesus be with me today and help me to do your bidding. Help me help others in your name. And please let this foggy headedness not interfere in my decisions or memory. Thank you that it's really nothing and not something like real morbidity and mortality, like the deaths I learned of this week. Be with them and their families in this time of grief.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Mother's Day poem
I remember holding your leg
And hiding in your skirts
I miss you and those days you protected me
Ferociously
I remember your grilled cheese sandwiches
Lunches at noon on school days
Telling you what I'd been doing
And your really wanting to hear
I remember your love of Dad and family and flowers
I remember going to church you and your sister
I remember the picnics
And times in the boats
I remember your bringing me soup
When I was sick in bed
I remember you at graduations
And weddings and awards ceremonies
I especially remember you and Boris' dad
Standing outside at our hockey games
The only parent spectators there in the bitter cold
There's too much to remember
Then you were Old
And I was sitting time and again by your side
The winkled withered smile
That reminded me then of your mother
Who stayed with us in the front room
Till she died
As you died
Quietly, bravely
Trusting in Jesus.
Dad and my brother and I cried
When Dad died I saw you coming back inside
Saying I've come to take your father home
And I know you'll be there to take me too
But I'm alone now
Lonely now remembering
Still Often afraid
Missing your writing
Missing your tales
Missing your rapt interest in mine
All my life is just the product of your love
All that is good and true
I've learned from you and Dad
The rest I've learned
Has just been extras
I'm so very thankful
Sad remembering
But thankful
So very thankful
And blessed by your love
Till we meet again, Mom
In His home.
And hiding in your skirts
I miss you and those days you protected me
Ferociously
I remember your grilled cheese sandwiches
Lunches at noon on school days
Telling you what I'd been doing
And your really wanting to hear
I remember your love of Dad and family and flowers
I remember going to church you and your sister
I remember the picnics
And times in the boats
I remember your bringing me soup
When I was sick in bed
I remember you at graduations
And weddings and awards ceremonies
I especially remember you and Boris' dad
Standing outside at our hockey games
The only parent spectators there in the bitter cold
There's too much to remember
Then you were Old
And I was sitting time and again by your side
The winkled withered smile
That reminded me then of your mother
Who stayed with us in the front room
Till she died
As you died
Quietly, bravely
Trusting in Jesus.
Dad and my brother and I cried
When Dad died I saw you coming back inside
Saying I've come to take your father home
And I know you'll be there to take me too
But I'm alone now
Lonely now remembering
Still Often afraid
Missing your writing
Missing your tales
Missing your rapt interest in mine
All my life is just the product of your love
All that is good and true
I've learned from you and Dad
The rest I've learned
Has just been extras
I'm so very thankful
Sad remembering
But thankful
So very thankful
And blessed by your love
Till we meet again, Mom
In His home.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Canadian Medical and Dental Society Praise, Prayer and Worship
I so enjoyed the worship, praise and prayer time at the Canadian Medical and Dental Society Annual Meeting in Edmonton this year. It's hard being 'good' as a doctor. Often there's more reward in doing the opposite of what healing is. Too often you find that doing good gets you in more trouble than doing nothing. Neglect and avoidance, cherry picking and various other strategies are financially superior to actually doing a good job. Even what is 'good' is called 'subjective' with monetary considerations masquerading under other names. Euthanasia is all the rage but really do I want my doctor as I'm growing older to be rewarded for my departure anyway possible. When I first worked in hospitals the hospital stays were based on medicine and pathology but now it really has become a factory shute with doctors rewarded financially in places for early discharge. So what happens when there's a euthanasia option and the patients insurance coverage isn't all it's said to be.
I sat with other doctors who do good in a world where good and bad aren't defined in any moral sense but increasingly in terms of profit and loss.. I weary of the strain of trying to have patients get off drugs, stop drinking, change their lifestyle and follow through with medical advice. So many of my patients won't even get blood work or X-rays and I'm left choosing to do nothing or give antibiotics speculatively, assured that they will get them only if I insist on daily dispensing along with the methadone the patient might go to the pharmacy to get. And everyone insists that I am my brother's keeper but no one is there with me when he is at his worst. No one but another doctor or another helper perhaps.
We learned this week of the Christians who stayed to help in the plagues while the smart doctors of the day ran. It's little different today.
I'm wanting to engage in conversation about quitting smoking "everything" and the patient's agenda is to get medical marijuana. There's a matter of cross purposes.
Each doctor I talked to described some similar decision making situation in their area of speciality. A cardiologist described how choosing not to get an unnecessary angiogram with potential risk for the patient meant he made less money and explaining his decision to do right took more time and cost him more whereas simply doing the angiogram would have been much more lucrative.
So what to do to maintain one's hope and pleasure in the practice of medicine. Why not give up and go into administration, take a cushy government job, become an activist or another health care critic in a world of more and more critics and fewer and fewer doers. Everyone wants to avoid seeing patients especially those without resources and especially those with little hope and bad attitudes.
I feel alone and unsupported in doing the ethical and morally true things in my profession. I've a lifetime of practice highlighted by hard moral decisions and ethically right decisions that put me in conflict with powerful and sometimes corrupt institutions with wholly different agendas than saving an individual patients life. I hear things like "you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette' and wonder why I didn't accept that this applies to the person I'm seeing. More and more I'm told the person is just a 'customer'.
It's comforting to sing uplifting songs with a group of fellow physicians. It's heartening to sit quietly in prayer asking for God's guidance in your work and relationships.
And it's downright fun to hear someone say, "I read a book once and it says we win".
Praise the Lord! We live in the Father's World. What a beautiful song that was to sing the last day of a deeply moving reassuring conference of kind and caring Christian physicians. Thank you, all those organizers and their families for making this very special time possible.
I thanked one organizer and he shared that he didn't take praise well but had learned from his grandmother who always accepted thanks by saying,, "All glory is the Lord's" .
I sat with other doctors who do good in a world where good and bad aren't defined in any moral sense but increasingly in terms of profit and loss.. I weary of the strain of trying to have patients get off drugs, stop drinking, change their lifestyle and follow through with medical advice. So many of my patients won't even get blood work or X-rays and I'm left choosing to do nothing or give antibiotics speculatively, assured that they will get them only if I insist on daily dispensing along with the methadone the patient might go to the pharmacy to get. And everyone insists that I am my brother's keeper but no one is there with me when he is at his worst. No one but another doctor or another helper perhaps.
We learned this week of the Christians who stayed to help in the plagues while the smart doctors of the day ran. It's little different today.
I'm wanting to engage in conversation about quitting smoking "everything" and the patient's agenda is to get medical marijuana. There's a matter of cross purposes.
Each doctor I talked to described some similar decision making situation in their area of speciality. A cardiologist described how choosing not to get an unnecessary angiogram with potential risk for the patient meant he made less money and explaining his decision to do right took more time and cost him more whereas simply doing the angiogram would have been much more lucrative.
So what to do to maintain one's hope and pleasure in the practice of medicine. Why not give up and go into administration, take a cushy government job, become an activist or another health care critic in a world of more and more critics and fewer and fewer doers. Everyone wants to avoid seeing patients especially those without resources and especially those with little hope and bad attitudes.
I feel alone and unsupported in doing the ethical and morally true things in my profession. I've a lifetime of practice highlighted by hard moral decisions and ethically right decisions that put me in conflict with powerful and sometimes corrupt institutions with wholly different agendas than saving an individual patients life. I hear things like "you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette' and wonder why I didn't accept that this applies to the person I'm seeing. More and more I'm told the person is just a 'customer'.
It's comforting to sing uplifting songs with a group of fellow physicians. It's heartening to sit quietly in prayer asking for God's guidance in your work and relationships.
And it's downright fun to hear someone say, "I read a book once and it says we win".
Praise the Lord! We live in the Father's World. What a beautiful song that was to sing the last day of a deeply moving reassuring conference of kind and caring Christian physicians. Thank you, all those organizers and their families for making this very special time possible.
I thanked one organizer and he shared that he didn't take praise well but had learned from his grandmother who always accepted thanks by saying,, "All glory is the Lord's" .
Brunette River Walk with Gilbert
Sunny day. Warm with slight breeze. Blossom fragrances. Other walkers and cyclists on the trail. Smiles, greetings. Occasional tail wagging crotch and butt sniffing encounters. Robins in the trees. Ducks in the river.
I just arrived back from Edmonton. Picked up Gilbert from Hannah. Her dog, a female, bossed him all weekend. He didn't mind. He got to bark whenever someone came to the door. Glad to reunite.
I just arrived back from Edmonton. Picked up Gilbert from Hannah. Her dog, a female, bossed him all weekend. He didn't mind. He got to bark whenever someone came to the door. Glad to reunite.
New Day
I woke with hope remembering I'd been in this place once before. 1986 I'd done my psychiatry exams here then returned to the insaniety of the life I was living. Now years later I couldn't help but wonder if this passage might portend a course correction or simply mean I'd regained the lost ground I'd created digging my own grave rather than living life. So much shame and regret and guilt surrounded the disappointment of all the lies and betrayals. I was so much less than I'd hoped to me in that place we call a heart. My mind was sure but even my rapier wit grew dull with the hacking progress in the machate resistant jungle. So much happiness has come and gone. So much sadness and pain. These are just the currents and winds of God. I'm thankful I've stayed afloat on the vast ocean sometimes lonely sometimes too much with people. Now I'm letting go of some thing picking up others. It's always this way. Life is so special and precious. A child really. The first infant we have is ourselves. I've stretched mine to the limit at times. Now I'm coming back around. Getting ready for another kick at the can. Rising to the challenge. Praying. Meditating. Seeking God with all my mind heart and soul. Going forward with a Bible open to psalms or acts, studying texts in Hebrew, asking myself what can I do, where is it that I am to serve. I have served so long and so it is another day of service but somehow different. Learning to walk, like a child, getting up, stumbling and running forward. All I can do is hope. It's been a good time so far and now I'll begin this day again. Practicing the prescence of God.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Christian Medical and Dental Society - 2013 National Conference - The Wonder of Sabbath
This year's CMDS conference, May 2-5, 2013, was held in the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald, Edmonton, AB. The theme was the Wonder of Sabbath with workshops on avoiding physician burn out, professionalism, Christian ministry and balancing work with prayer and meditation. It was everything I personally needed. The hundreds of participants were as fortunate as I to be there
"Then Jesus said,"Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Mathew 11:28
Reverend Mark Buchanan, senior pastor of New Life Community Baptist Church in Duncan, BC was the KeyNote Speaker. So enjoying his spirituality and Christian faith, the heartfelt message and the profound oft time simple not simplistic thought, I bought two of his books: "Spiritual Rhythm, Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soul" and "The Holy Wild, Trusting in the Character of God". I especially enjoyed his Golden Rules presentation on how to keep the Sabbath Wholly and Holy. He just made the point that self care doesn't need to be selfish and that we needed to be still to appreciate what God does. He likened the harried physician to Martha in the story of Jesus and compared that with Lazarus. Normally we'd hear about Martha and Mary but I truly appreciated the discussion of sabbath in the context of Lazarus. His talk about the 'rhythms of rest, work and play" was so inspired.
The break out sessions were typically all very good and only one could be chosen from the trinity of choices each morning and afternoon. I was so impressed by "Taking Medicine Downtown to Where the Need Is" the CME on inner city medicine by Dr. Nancy Craig and Dr. Linda Der. Working as I do in an inner city clinic I was really appreciative of the discussion, stories and research presented. It all rang true. Hope Clinic Edmonton is a loving remarkable world of healing.
"Be It Resolved that Christian Physicians must develop common ground with unbelievers and build on this neutral base to be a credible witness in a secular world" was a provocative, informative and at times very amusing debate between Dr. Dan Reilly and Reverend Joe Boot.
Dr. Ted Fenske's presentation, Lack of Professionalism in Medicine: Why It's In Short Supply and What's Needed to Replenish It was to my mind worth the flight and weekend to hear this. I'd just reviewed hundreds of pages of academic writing on medical professionalism in the last year only to have Dr. Fenske sum everything up, cut through it all with his inspired genius and make suggestions that really were rooted in clinical reality.
The Christian Foundation of Science: A Medical History You Won't Learn in Medical School by Reverend Boot was so reassuring. I know how Western Medicine grew directly out of the work and charity of Christian physicians and yet in the revisionist history of errant academia I hear the opposite. I loved his listing quotes of Pasteur and Lister and Osler and comparison of the basis of 'evidence based' medicine with the "magic' and 'superstition' increasingly riding on the coat tails of these successes.
Over and over again in the conference the relationship of doctor and patient was compared to a covenanted relationship as opposed to that of a 'consumer' or 'customer' the common designations clinicians are increasingly being forced to use. I almost cried to hear other clinicians men and women whose reputations and work make them leaders in the country describe themselves as following a calling rather than just doing a 'job'.
It was exhilarating to be among the missionaries who like Albert Schweitzer had so lead me in my journeys to the arctic and pacific islands and inner city. I felt restored to be around people who understood me when I said I have gone where I believed the greatest need was. I was humbled to meet elder clinicians who'd spent years in the Congo, or India or South America.
Some of us laughed together when we considered how much more money we could be making doing abortions or euthanasia or selling bad medicine for high price, yet because we were Christian we loved what we did, even if at times we were persecuted for our faith. The benefits so outweighed the cons.
Over and over again we had opportunities to discuss our inner lives with each other and share our prayers.
I so enjoyed sitting with Dr. Phillip Ney and hearing his Pro life journey in defence of the unborn.
I would have loved to have heard Margaret Cottle's talk on "Countering Euthanasia in a Secular Workplace. I've shared her deep writing on Palliative Care and the care of the dying. There is no greater advocate for the person than Dr. Cottle and she presents her scientific wisdom with such admirable clarity. The Cottle's together provide wonderful music for the CMDS year after year. Dr. Robin Cottle can always be counted on to bring together a band and singers for the most extraordinary praise worship each day. This year there was even more jazz in his popular guitar.
Dr. John Patrick presented on Choosing Better Things. It's hard not to choose to listen to John but I've heard him repeatedly and have bought so many of his tapes I play so often driving on long trips. I pulled myself away from his workshop to attend a conflicting one that I knew I needed to attend this year, if it was at all possible, even more than I need to listen to Dr. Patrick.
There were others I'd have loved to have heard too but didn't. Good reason to return next year.
Dr. Cathie Olson's Banquet presentation, "Why We Need Missions as Much as Missions Need Us" was a wonderful story of this woman and her family's missions abroad. Accomplished in delivering babies deciding that the children overseas needed her to 'deliver' their teeth, she decided to learn dentistry for missions. Then she went on to train nurses in a mission on treating cavities in children. What a wonderful story with moving slides full of smiles where once there was such pain. Medical Students who'd been on a Nepal Mission study shared their journey.
All talked of coming closer to God in their service. At times I felt my eyes well up with tears to be among these healers talking as they did of their love of God and love of their neighbour. What a privilege it is to be a physician. What a Joy it is to be a Christian.
"Then Jesus said,"Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Mathew 11:28
Reverend Mark Buchanan, senior pastor of New Life Community Baptist Church in Duncan, BC was the KeyNote Speaker. So enjoying his spirituality and Christian faith, the heartfelt message and the profound oft time simple not simplistic thought, I bought two of his books: "Spiritual Rhythm, Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soul" and "The Holy Wild, Trusting in the Character of God". I especially enjoyed his Golden Rules presentation on how to keep the Sabbath Wholly and Holy. He just made the point that self care doesn't need to be selfish and that we needed to be still to appreciate what God does. He likened the harried physician to Martha in the story of Jesus and compared that with Lazarus. Normally we'd hear about Martha and Mary but I truly appreciated the discussion of sabbath in the context of Lazarus. His talk about the 'rhythms of rest, work and play" was so inspired.
The break out sessions were typically all very good and only one could be chosen from the trinity of choices each morning and afternoon. I was so impressed by "Taking Medicine Downtown to Where the Need Is" the CME on inner city medicine by Dr. Nancy Craig and Dr. Linda Der. Working as I do in an inner city clinic I was really appreciative of the discussion, stories and research presented. It all rang true. Hope Clinic Edmonton is a loving remarkable world of healing.
"Be It Resolved that Christian Physicians must develop common ground with unbelievers and build on this neutral base to be a credible witness in a secular world" was a provocative, informative and at times very amusing debate between Dr. Dan Reilly and Reverend Joe Boot.
Dr. Ted Fenske's presentation, Lack of Professionalism in Medicine: Why It's In Short Supply and What's Needed to Replenish It was to my mind worth the flight and weekend to hear this. I'd just reviewed hundreds of pages of academic writing on medical professionalism in the last year only to have Dr. Fenske sum everything up, cut through it all with his inspired genius and make suggestions that really were rooted in clinical reality.
The Christian Foundation of Science: A Medical History You Won't Learn in Medical School by Reverend Boot was so reassuring. I know how Western Medicine grew directly out of the work and charity of Christian physicians and yet in the revisionist history of errant academia I hear the opposite. I loved his listing quotes of Pasteur and Lister and Osler and comparison of the basis of 'evidence based' medicine with the "magic' and 'superstition' increasingly riding on the coat tails of these successes.
Over and over again in the conference the relationship of doctor and patient was compared to a covenanted relationship as opposed to that of a 'consumer' or 'customer' the common designations clinicians are increasingly being forced to use. I almost cried to hear other clinicians men and women whose reputations and work make them leaders in the country describe themselves as following a calling rather than just doing a 'job'.
It was exhilarating to be among the missionaries who like Albert Schweitzer had so lead me in my journeys to the arctic and pacific islands and inner city. I felt restored to be around people who understood me when I said I have gone where I believed the greatest need was. I was humbled to meet elder clinicians who'd spent years in the Congo, or India or South America.
Some of us laughed together when we considered how much more money we could be making doing abortions or euthanasia or selling bad medicine for high price, yet because we were Christian we loved what we did, even if at times we were persecuted for our faith. The benefits so outweighed the cons.
Over and over again we had opportunities to discuss our inner lives with each other and share our prayers.
I so enjoyed sitting with Dr. Phillip Ney and hearing his Pro life journey in defence of the unborn.
I would have loved to have heard Margaret Cottle's talk on "Countering Euthanasia in a Secular Workplace. I've shared her deep writing on Palliative Care and the care of the dying. There is no greater advocate for the person than Dr. Cottle and she presents her scientific wisdom with such admirable clarity. The Cottle's together provide wonderful music for the CMDS year after year. Dr. Robin Cottle can always be counted on to bring together a band and singers for the most extraordinary praise worship each day. This year there was even more jazz in his popular guitar.
Dr. John Patrick presented on Choosing Better Things. It's hard not to choose to listen to John but I've heard him repeatedly and have bought so many of his tapes I play so often driving on long trips. I pulled myself away from his workshop to attend a conflicting one that I knew I needed to attend this year, if it was at all possible, even more than I need to listen to Dr. Patrick.
There were others I'd have loved to have heard too but didn't. Good reason to return next year.
Dr. Cathie Olson's Banquet presentation, "Why We Need Missions as Much as Missions Need Us" was a wonderful story of this woman and her family's missions abroad. Accomplished in delivering babies deciding that the children overseas needed her to 'deliver' their teeth, she decided to learn dentistry for missions. Then she went on to train nurses in a mission on treating cavities in children. What a wonderful story with moving slides full of smiles where once there was such pain. Medical Students who'd been on a Nepal Mission study shared their journey.
All talked of coming closer to God in their service. At times I felt my eyes well up with tears to be among these healers talking as they did of their love of God and love of their neighbour. What a privilege it is to be a physician. What a Joy it is to be a Christian.
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