Monday, March 31, 2008
Mistaken Identity
I just talked with a current Taylor student and found out about the release of the story of Whitney Cerak and Laura Van Ryn. It is the story of the two girls whose bodies were mistaken after the horrible accident that killed several other Taylor students and one staff member.
It is the #3 book being sold on Amazon.com right now. There are 141 requests for it at the Indianapolis library. I can't wait to read about their experiences and reflections on all that has happened since that tragic accident on April 26, 2006. I knew Betsy Smith, one of the other students who was killed in the accident. I will never forget the night of the accident and the months afterwards as more of the story unfolded. What an incredible testimony to be able to open up your hearts and lives and share with the world how you saw God in the midst of unspeakable tragedy.
The Examined Life
- I am going to spend a week analyzing the food I consume compared with my caloric expenditure via Mydailyplate.com (a phenomenal and free website). I'm not trying to lose serious weight, but I want to see how I can eat a more balanced diet.
- For one week I will analyze how I spend my time. I will keep a close record of how much time I spend on the internet, studying, exercising... to see how I can waste less time and create blocks of time doing things that are truly refreshing and meaningful to me.
- I will keep a closer record of how I am spending my money. I am in the process of creating a budget and want to see more accurately where my money is going.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
My To-Do List
This all will happen prior to starting residency on July 1, but hopefully most will happen before graduation on May 10th.
- Find financing for a home
- Pick and then buy a home
- Move into home
- Buy essential furniture
- Meet my new neighbors
- Decide on a budget
- Meet with my financial advisor to figure out how to make this work
- Figure out how to defer my loans
- Do tons of paperwork to be employed, insured...
- Find a dentist, primary care physician, cardiologist, eye doctor
- Compete in 1 or 2 triathlons
- Do a century ride (100+ miles) on my bike
- Prepare for an incredible 2 week trip to Israel
- Spend tons of time with family and friends- this must include several trips to the Wonderland Theater, many games of Settlers, at least 1 trip to Houston...
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Trust
Our God trusts us to trust Him.... Let us not disappoint Him. Let us rise to this great trust.
My New Gym
- 25 yard lap pool with a lifeguard always on duty
- Spinning classes with new bikes
- 6 indoor tennis courts with free access to ball machines and all other equipment and tons of leagues
- 100+ cardio machines
- Huge weightlifting area with personal trainers always available for free
- They have decided to only charge me the student rate
- Really good hours- 24 hour would be better, but there aren't any like that in the downtown area
- A hospital right next door in case something goes awry
- Huge hot tube, steam room, sauna in a really nice locker room
Sunday, March 23, 2008
House Shopping
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Processing...
As I've had time to get over the initial shock I am excited to be staying at IU. Would it have been fun and exciting to move to a coastal town? Of course! Instead, I'm going to stay in a city that I love and train with tons of friends at a phenomenal program. At least 6 of the 9 that matched into general surgery at IU are classmates of mine, and one is my closest friend in medical school (who is as passionate as I am about international medicine). In addition I have lots of friends staying at IU for other residencies and tons of other friends in Indy. I will work with many surgeons that I already know. I won't have to learn the layout of 3-6 new hospitals nor will I have to maneuver around a new city. In my fourth year I can go to Kenya to do 6 weeks of surgery at a hospital that IU has established a reciprocal relationship with. In addition to the opportunity to make an immediate impact on the patients there I will get to learn about their partnership in Kenya (which was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize) in hopes of setting up something similar elsewhere someday. I will also get to stay a little more closely connected to relationships in South Bend which is one of the things I am most excited about. I'm not sure what all God has in store for those relationships but I know it is better than my wildest dreams.
God is good all the time. He has plans far beyond my comprehension and I trust His sovereign guidance. God wasn't surprised like I was today and not only was He aware of the results- but He orchestrated them. He has proven Himself time and time again and I'm not going to begin to doubt Him now. I am going to be training in a premiere surgery program surrounded by a support system that is out of this world. I'm going to go to sleep tonight knowing that God is good.
I'm Not Moving
Monday, March 17, 2008
I Matched
Saturday, March 15, 2008
I'm really nosey
I don't even know what I think of him as a presidential candidate, but I love getting to see exciting stuff happening. It was amazing the way the police cars had everything orchestrated. I am excited to have Clinton and Obama campaigning here in the next couple of months. It's pretty crazy that Indiana's opinion actually matters for once in the primaries. I am going to try and hear both of them speak just to experience it. I wish the republicans were still competing so I could see them too. It will be fun to shamelessly try and meet them! I would love to get to ask Hillary about her health care plan at an open forum. It would just be fun and interesting.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Beautifully Eloquent
I am a Christian. Not because my grandfather is, not because his grandfather was…not because Grove Level planned the best activities when I was in middle school. I am a Christian because I have studied the life of Christ and it is good and it is love…and it is triumphant.
I have never thrown my arms up in excitement or run around the sanctuary or shouted out to God during a sermon or fainted or swayed or been “slain in the Spirit” or spoken in tongues…or handled snakes (smile).
It’s all I can do to clap in time to praise music…but I can hear Him whisper and I have felt Him only inches away if any at all and He has touched me and my insides stand in attention and my heart is red and it beats hard and fast and if you turn me inside out like an orange there would be some fantastic celebration with parades and ferris wheels and fireworks and marching bands and jelly beans and pinwheels and fire eaters and hula hoops and…fat ladies in polka dots and lions and popcorn and acrobats.
I pray that you might know my insides and realize that although I don’t believe as you do…I believe with passion and with love and with direction of thought and purpose…not with a simple, gross obedience to a church or a pastor or a cause….All I know is that in the end it will be as God has planned and man can not interfere.
And God is love. Love is everything.
- Katie Hammontree [Whitlow]
Amen (smile)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sweet Spot
I'm on a rotation that is the "holy grail" of sorts for medical school. It is the most demanding rotation and I have been dreading it for months. I'm over a week in and loving it! You know you've picked the right field when you can work a 30 hour shift every 4-6 days on top of normal work days and still love it. It's not that I prefer internal medicine (the really sweet spot for me is surgery) but I love working with patients and other health care providers.
There are tons of things that I'm not good at- things I have tried as ministry opportunities that worked but were never a beaming success. I was the worst greeter imaginable at church. I was an adequate worker in the children's ministry- I think I connected with some kids, but there are people who are really good at that and if there are enough of them to cover the job I just assume leave them to it. In high school I helped produce our services, but I didn't do anything spectacular or that others willing to invest the time couldn't have done.
Michelle Wegner, who is very wise, once told me that medicine is my ministry. I was talking about missions and how so many physicians go overseas and get spread thin trying to do all sorts of "ministries" to help prove that what they were doing mattered for eternity. It felt so freeing to be reminded that medicine is my ministry. What better opportunity to tell someone about God's love than after fixing their child's cleft lip? It is my sweet spot, where I am able to love and be energized by people that in any other setting I would likely avoid.
I'm not saying I won't pitch in when a need arises elsewhere but medicine is my main ministry.
“Oh that we might discern the will of God, surrender to His calling, resign the masses of activities, and do a few things well. What a legacy that would be for our children.” -Beth Moore
Friday, March 7, 2008
Is This a Toy?
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Health Care- A Basic Human Right?
Is health care a fundamental human right? I think everyone should have access to primary care- routine checkups, immunizations... but where does it end? Nations with universal health care are much stricter on what care is offered to extremely premature babies and those near the end of life. Some have criteria and if a baby is born who doesn't meet their criteria they don't invest their country's money in sustaining that life. We do and as a result a huge portion of our nation's spending keeps severely premature babies and those with terminal illnesses alive much longer than other countries. If we don't like to view medicine as a business we haven't seen anything compared to what it would be like with universal health care.
I have heard about the drama with the system in Canada and how citizens have to wait for unacceptably long periods of time for needed tests and procedures. Time is essential in detecting cancers, setting broken bones.... I think most would agree that the Canadian system is far from ideal, but there are tons of other models of universal health care that are working- nearly every country in Europe has some government-sanctioned health care, and most are working quite well. They might pay huge taxes, but do they end up paying more in the long run when you consider everything is covered? How much do we pay on deductibles, copays, and fees that end up just padding the wallets of upper management of insurance companies and hospitals?
I met with a classmate recently and we ended up discussing these ideas for quite a while. She was quick to point out some fallacies in my thoughts. She had a hard time grasping that I, someone committed to providing health care for those lacking it overseas, would be opposed to the concept that all Americans should have access to health care. She reminded me that many of the 47 million who are uninsured in America are hard-working individuals who just can't afford insurance and their employers don't provide it. Given the choice of feeding their families or paying money for something they might not need, they make the obvious choice of food for their kids. I would too if I had to make that choice.
My friend also pointed out that because I choose to exercise a lot I might need knee replacements or other procedures. Is it fair that those who choose more moderate lifestyles fund my treatment because I have chosen a more aggressive exercise regimen? What about all the marathon and ultra-marathon runners? Ironman triathletes? Should we have to pay for all the health complications due to their obsessive lifestyles? Another great point.
The way our system is right now, we are the only industrialized nation that doesn't provide health care to everyone. Well, we do in emergency rooms because it is the law- but that is a very inefficient and ineffective way to treat patients. We spend more of our GDP on health care than any other nation and yet if you look at the numbers even our care for those who have access is really no better.
I don't really understand Hillary Clinton's plan because I can't seem to find any real in-depth information on it. I know she plans to fund it by ending the tax cuts on those whose income is over $250,000. Part of the funding will also come from the savings that will result from cutting out the middlemen in health care which I appreciate. Apparently 50% of our health care spendings as a nation goes towards paying middlemen. That is ridiculous. If you are interested in learning more about her plan and others that are working elsewhere click here.
Our current system is unsustainable. We need to act. To me it seems like a much larger crisis than global warming, but maybe I'm biased by what I see in the hospital coupled with an inch of freezing rain in early March.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Quotes
How differently our lives would be if we instead made work into worship. -Mark Buchanan
So one crucial meaning of our secular work is that the way we do it will increase or decrease the attractiveness of the Gospel we profess before unbelievers. - John Piper
We must know God before we can love Him. To know God we must think of Him. And when we come to love Him we will think of Him often for our heart will be with our treasure. -Brother Lawrence
A prayer makes sense only if it is being lived. Unless they are 'lived', unless life and prayer become completely interwoven, prayers become a sort of polite madrigal which you offer to God at moments when you are giving time to Him. -Anthony Bloom