Yet again another late night run of inspiration to share my most recent reflections on life. Let’s hope my thoughts are coherent for this one.
The world of medical academia is a dark place.
That might sound like an odd thing to say; after all, physicians are trained for the benefit of society and promotion of health and life. There are so many opportunities for doctors to positively influence patients, hear their stories, provide emotional support and perhaps be the first to incite the feeling that somebody actually cares for them. Medical practitioners recognize that the health of a patient goes beyond the individual and involves the community and thus advocate for policies and awareness programs to protect patients from harm and sickness. To be sure, much good is being done by the medical community to ensure the well being of humanity.
However, I say it is a dark place because it is still a realm where Jesus does not reign supreme. Let’s back track a bit and look at the bigger picture.
Darkness reigns in places where Christ, the Light of the World, is not given the reins of control. Who, then, is in control if not us feeble, fragile and foolish humans? In our limited wisdom and strength, we try to push society towards better cooperation, peaceful resolutions of conflict and the axiom of tolerance. We do all this while ignorant that many problems are not rooted in the corruption of society but rather the corruption of humanity. The issue is the degenerate nature of our very hearts because of the curse of sin from Adam’s time. We are caught in moral entropy and nothing we do to promote good in society, no matter what seemingly wise and prudent methods we choose, we are bound for disorder. A clear example of this is the idea of “relative truth” which has so set itself in the minds of post-modern contemporaries. This concept makes it acceptable for the murderer to take his victim because to him, it is not wrong to kill; let’s not even discuss Hitler. We have simply fallen short of the glory of God and there is no undertaking by our own efforts that will ever restore us to perfection.
I was sitting in a lecture on sexual assault the other day and watched a short video of some victims recalling their heart-wrenching experiences. Immediately after these stories, I heard whispers arise around the class. There was unanimous disgust for the assailants and compassion for the victims. I could also feel a unanimous sense of vulnerability among the students; no one is immune to the darkness of society. Indeed those are proper responses and not surprisingly, ones that charge the medical community to put forth their best efforts in caring for the physical, emotional and mental needs of the victims. Awareness programs and movements are formed to combat the perpetrators and bring justice to the situation. While these efforts are certainly admirable and essential in the fight, they will never succeed in righting the darkness in society because they cannot right the darkness in humanity. If only doctors, whose role is to promote life, would preach Jesus, the Giver of Life. Only He can shed light on the darkness of humanity because He took the darkness with Him on the cross when He died for us. If we want to see people living full lives, we ought to lead them to the one that gave it to them in the first place. He can break this spiral of moral entropy. He can move humans towards loving each other, forgiving each other and protecting each other. When humanity is changed, society will be as well.
Medical academia is a dark place because Jesus is not in control but we are. We teach our developing doctors that the solution to human suffering lies in our own virtuous efforts and ideas. Somehow we believe that we can better promote health if we can only listen more, express better empathy, find more cures and determine the implications and applications of social determinants of health. It’s always about what we do (and believe me, we are accomplished achievers), and not about what Jesus can do. It is the tyranny of “self” that blinds us to the glorious work of Jesus on the cross. What He accomplished there sets us free from having to make humanity right with our own efforts and wisdom. Through faith in Him, we are no longer slaves to trying to earn righteousness, of which the lack thereof accentuates our imperfection and creates a void insatiable by anything that is not God. Righteousness is simply bestowed unto us as we take upon His life and are given His Spirit to live it out. Righteousness comes by faith because it is accepting the reality that “He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that [by faith] in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Righteousness in humanity means righteousness in society. Since there are so many social aspects influencing health there is bound to be promotion of health as a result. The solution is not more of us, but more of Him.
If only we taught our doctors that even more important than the rehabilitation and remediation of physical health is the regeneration of spiritual life. If only medical academia set Jesus on the throne and let the Great Physician be our guide to giving the best holistic care we can give to our patients. It was no coincidence that he, who healed a woman of her longtime haemorrhaging, also made an implicit point to tell her that her sins were forgiven (Luke 8). We would do well to do our best to heal our patients of their physical ailments while directing their attention to the One who can heal their spiritual ailment. We would do well to let the light of Christ break into the darkness of medical academia and teach us what true health care looks like.
Mm, agree… prayer for our class is always needed!