the glory and the horror

I had the unique and distinct honor and privilege today to not only attend the Graves-Born wedding, but to be in it, as an usher. Reese, if you ever read this, I just wanted to tell you again, what an honor and privilege it is to be called one of your (many) roommates, but that only goes to show how awesome it is to be one. Those of us who have been one know it. Thanks for being a great friend and brother, eager to encourage and pray for me.

May the Lord bless you two, Reese and Jennifer, so that your lives may reflect the glory of the marriage of Christ and the Church, and may you always yearn for Christ above all else. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life, and your wedding.

Got broad-sided by another test. Haven’t felt this bad about a test since Neuro last year. Should’ve studied more. Should’ve started studying earlier. Oh well. I’m done. It’s only the 1st test.

The funny thing is, I think I remember more (and more accurately) when I’m seeing patients or doing a writeup than I do, with cued recall, on a test.

We’re not nearly as important as we think we are, and worth more than we’ll ever know.

- Mark Thames (slightly paraphrased)

Less than 12 hours until my last test of the semester. Just one more test.

So another one of my roommates got engaged this morning. Justin (not John), although between me and John, our roommates do pretty well. 5 of them are engaged/married in just a couple years. I guess it’s just that time of life where people do that.

So it’s time for me to buckle down and get going with some serious studying. 2 tests this week, one in pathology (all the stuff that goes wrong with your body) and clinical medicine (being able to figure out what’s going wrong by looking at stuff, listening to stuff, touching stuff, and so on).

I’ve also been doing some stuff on the weekends with the interview weekends, and talking to students who are applying to come to medical school here at this institution. It’s interesting. I think I have some of my best conversations with random people here, because they’re all serious and scared by their interviews, and daunting juggernaut that is medical school. But I also get to ask them to consider hard questions as they ask me what I think of school in general, and what I think of this school in particular. It’s quite refreshing to engage people at this point in the “process” of becoming a part of the medical culture. I get to ask them to consider questions like:

What does it mean to be human?
What is the purpose of medicine?
What is the purpose of suffering? Does suffering even have any?
What is medicine supposed to do about suffering?
What do you say to someone who is dying? Why?
What do you say to someone who asks you why they have a certain illness?
What does it mean to develop a good doctor-patient relationship?
How do you trust your doctor?
How do you want your patients to trust you? Do you even want them to? Why?
What does the Hippocratic Oath mean today?
What do the historical ideals of medicine have to do with the modern practice of medicine in America?
How does technology affect the humanness of medicine?
What in medicine should change with technology and what shouldn’t? Why?

I don’t have good answers to all of these questions, or even sorta-formulated responses. Some of theses things are still turning over and over in my head, and I just hope to be able to encourage some of the applicants to not see medicine as a body of knowledge, but something much more than that. I hope I can get them to ask the right questions. That’s the best that I can do. God will have to provide the answers to them.

Check this out. This pun made me laugh.

Link

Boundless Webzine – Facing the Light

Wow.

Another Augustine quote a friend hooked me up with:

“Our volumes are put up for sale in public; the light never needs to blush. Let them buy them, read them, believe them; or else buy them, read them, make fun of them. Those Scriptures know how to hold people guilty who read them and don’t believe.”

“The bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; the coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you are able to help others, and refuse, so often did you do them wrong.” – Augustine

I’d love to find the actual citation for that quote. As of now, the best I can do is the President of World Vision’s article in the Winter 2003 edition of their magazine. Good reading.

Speaking of World Vision, send a different gift this year to a loved one, and give a Gift of Hope from World Vision, like a goat for $75, six childhood immunizations for $25, ten fruit trees for $45 or Bibles. There’s more to pick from, so check it out. I really like what they do. I really enjoy spending money this way.

I think I’ve linked this guy before, but check out what the Real Live Preacher’s done with the Christmas Story. Very nice.

I’ve been doing some more thinking about this graduate school thing, and I’m becoming more and more sure that I want to give it a good shot after medical school.

The New Old-Time Religion: Evangelicals defy easy labels. Here’s why–and why their numbers are growing from US News and World Reports.

What Jonathan Edwards might think of American evangelicalism if he were alive today.