Our church has initiated a new plan for prayer. We will have an unofficial schedule during which we are advised to pray wherever we are three times daily. I like this idea. It seems an appropriate discipline in a time when the idea of spiritual discipline is often viewed as too rigid or antiquated. While […]

I just saw a patient who had elevated blood pressure. He had a history of this and took appropriate medication. He had no symptoms or complaints, except that the number was up more than normal. His wife informed me, with a smile and a shake of her head, that he checked his blood pressure all […]

I’ve seen a lot of wounds over the course of my medical career — some of them from car crashes, others from assaults. Many of them have been work-related injuries or resulted from the use of tools around the home. Still others have been due to animal bites or stings. The injuries I listed above […]

I just saw a post on social media that proclaimed, “An ectopic pregnancy is not a real pregnancy.” This was, of course, in response to legal questions in the wake of Roe v. Wade. It was also wrong and confusing. As Christians, it is incumbent on us not to simply be people who scream slogans […]

July is upon us, and it’s a big month in the world of medicine. July 1 is traditionally the day that medical school graduates start their residency training. It’s a time of anxiety for those physicians and also can be a time of confusion for people being seen and treated by them in hospitals and […]

When we think about healthcare and hospitals, most people conjure up images of physicians in surgery, or of nurses in scrubs, moving quickly and efficiently between sick patients. Hospitals are filled with many important people — from medical staff to therapists, pharmacists, X-ray and ultrasound technicians, housekeeping, laundry, kitchen staff, and a veritable army of […]

I have spent my life in the church, and, from about age 15 on, I was one of the dreaded “PKs.” That’s right, a preacher’s kid. Right up there with MKs (missionary kids) in our capacity for disruption, PKs can be a handful. But one of the great things about being a PK was having […]

Many years ago, I was reading “In His Image,” a book by Dr. Paul Brand. Brand, some will recall, was a pioneering plastic surgeon doing incredible mission work in India, operating on those afflicted with Hansen’s disease, or leprosy. Prior to that, he had experience operating on pilots who survived crashes during the Battle of […]

It’s still winter, but spring is on its way. One day we’ll look back and see that COVID and all of the chaos of our world is in the rearview mirror. One day we’ll emerge from this darkness and stretch in the light. However, we have to be ready. Spring is like that. It makes […]

Physicians in general are a pretty intelligent group of professionals. However, we sometimes make the mistake of thinking that because we know a lot about one particular thing, we must also know a lot about almost everything. However, given the exploding pace of advancing knowledge, that idea is arrogant. But it isn’t just science and […]