the glory and the horror

This past three weeks, Kathleen has been on a rotation called a sub-internship, where she is essentially “practicing” to be an intern to get a feel for what it will be like next year, when she’s no longer a student, and an actual intern in a pediatrics program somewhere.

I’m a little worried, because there’s this 80-hour work week rule, and if this month is any indication, she’ll be breaking the rule regularly. That’s not exactly an exciting prospect for me.

I understand that there’s a lot to be done at the hospital, and lots of learning can/should occur there, but seriously, this past weekend, she was supposed to be off, and still went up and put in at least an extra 10 hours.

I’m going to have to put my foot down next year, and make sure that 80 hours is all she works!

This article from the International Herald-Tribune by Stanley Fish is a brilliant assessment of the situation regarding famous blasphemous Danish cartoons.

I hope this BBC article was somehow misrepresenting New Tribes Mission. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is quite upset about NTM being there, and has already threatened to kick them out, and is apparently making moves to make it official.

However, the troubling thing is not President Chavez, but NTM saying:

“The group says in return for agreeing to adopt the Christian faith, the indigenous people receive basic health care and literacy classes.”

I hope they don’t really operate that way. I hope BBC is misrepresenting them, both for their sakes, and for Christendom’s sake. NTM’s website doesn’t say anything specifically about this, that I could find, and I had seen their booth at various missions fairs/conferences I’ve attended, including Urbana, and my feel for them was that they were legit, but then again, who knows.

Officially, their purpose doesn’t even mention health care.

We mobilize, equip and coordinate missionaries, who come from and are sent out by local churches. Working through NTM, these missionaries evangelize people groups who have had no access to the Gospel, translate the Scriptures into their language, and plant a church.

Now this is a really dumb thing to do. Thanks to Michelle Malkin via Ed’s blog.

I understand the need to take action, but this is now endangering, if not killing, additional people, and these are most definitely other innocent bystanders. I mean, these people may very well be other Muslims!

There were an interesting set of pieces on All Things Considered today regarding this issue.

Apparently, the cartoons came out in September, and things are only blowing up just now. Additionally, in the Middle East right now, there are additional, more revolting pictures being circulated amongst the masses in addition to the actual editorial cartoons from September. Those packets of pictures never differentiated (so far as anyone knows) between what was published by the Danish paper and what wasn’t. Continue Reading »

In recent months, I have become addicted to 24. It was A&E that did it to me, when they started running reruns of 24:Season 1 in 4 episode blocks a while back, probably October. I watched a couple. I am now in the middle of season 2.

In honor of my new found TV addiction, here’s something I found on a message board. Continue Reading »

the wordsruntogether
from the hydrant in the white coat.
lost in the big room,
the waterfall cascades around him
but he’s not wet.

he only feels one drop
“cancer”
and nothing else matters.

the room rings with the silence
of “chemo…” and “spreading to…”
“weeks to months…” and soaks him.

the rain clouds circle above
waiting to unload.

she turns to him
the floodgates open
“scared…” and “the kids?”
“why” and “dear God”
“do it together…” and “not alone…”

the pressure is releasing
the dam has broken
the current takes them away as
the wordsruntogether.

One thing that may be a good outcome of all this emphasis on health savings accounts and high-deductible health insurance plans – people will begin to feel the real cost of health care, and maybe they’ll take a little more responsibility in areas that are clearly their responsibility. Nowhere else in the world are we suffering so much from rampant diseases of overnutrition.

Hopefully, that will take a huge burden off of some of our health system a few years down the line. The immediate effects won’t be as obvious, but as diabetics control their blood sugars, one day, there will be fewer people on dialysis, fewer people getting legs amputated, and fewer people going blind.

Hopefully, that would mean more funds, energy, and people freed up to do more early intervention and preventive education. It’s got to start somewhere.

It seems to me that medicine is a lot like politics is a lot like our judicial system. The system we have isn’t necessarily so bad, but there comes a time when it’s really the people in the system that really make it great or rotten.