A Letter for Healers

I got this letter from a friend who graduated from studying medicine. This is specially addressed to those who are in the medical field. But for those who aren't in any medically related field, I hope you read this still. Perhaps this challenge is not just for doctors or nurses or clerks, but can be applied to any Christian serving in the profession that God has entrusted upon them. Enjoy....

November 8, 2006

Dear ones,

           Clerkship is almost over, well not quite.

           What have you learned? The science of medicine, or the arts of medicine?

           We are being pushed constantly almost daily. The more I learned medicine, the more fearful, or even dreadful I became. It is a vast sea of knowledge. There is no end in all these searching and pursuit of knowledge. Truly, the old philosopher was right by saying Arts is long, and life is short, judgment difficult.

            

            "Ars longa,

                vita brevis,

                 occasio praeceps,    

                    experimentum periculosum,    
                         judicium difficile."

           Are you growing numb to the death of your patients? Are you still being moved by the howling of the relatives? Are you sad, depressed, after witnessing the flat line on the Cardiac monitor? Or perhaps, you felt this awful sense of relief, an un-resettled guilty feeling of pleasure with the realization of no more Q 1 monitoring, or even bedside monitoring?

           Compassion.

Sympathy.

Let not the study of medicine suck up your emotions dry. We feel, therefore, we give treatment… heart-fully believing that by giving these set of medications, our patient is going to get better. Let this be the conviction when you are about to put something in the prescription pad one day; but for now, let this be the indwelling conviction when you are about to present the case in the AD CON.

Watching someone die, makes one learn how to live.

          

            Are you alive, or dead? Breathing perhaps you are, but are you alive?

          

            “Only one life to live

           Soon will past.

           Only what's done for Christ,

           Will last.”

          

            Each one of us, entering medicine, choosing this long journey less traveled with a set of preformed ideology. What is your ideology?

          

            Well, I have mine, and I refuse to keep silence this time.

          

            Becoming a physician is not the ultimate end. It is simply a tool to achieve that ultimate end. This ultimatum is hidden in the heart of man, revealed to each one by God.

          

            “The ultimate end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

          

            I am a Christian who happened to be a doctor.

          

            I have my identity that no one can take it away. My identity is not bound by that white robe. Take it off, and I will still be me, James, a Christian who happened to be a doctor. I know where I came from, why I am here, and where I will be going.

          

           As a clerk, there is little that I can do. But I have two hands that can fold, and a heart that can pray. This I say perhaps is the first and last lesson in the arts of medicine.

          

            Are you praying for your patients?

          

            You are instruments in a Mighty Hand! Let this be your confidence.

                                        

                                                                   Refusing not to feel,                                                                                      

                                                                          James Lee, M.D.(Mission Driven)

                                                                                           11-08-2006, Sampaloc Manila

 

"Leading is a temporary assignment.  Following is a
lifelong calling."
             --- Joseph Stowell, "Following Christ"