AMEN 2016-Radical Practice: Healing in the 11th Hour

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

Plenary

Edwin Nebblett

Radical: Burning, Balance or Flame Out?

Father, I ask that you would take this lisping, stammering tongue and use it to your glory.

I feel very inadequate, but Lord, you know that the needs are of those who are here, and I pray that your spirit would use me to speak into their hearts, and that they will feel their need of you as we address this important topic in Jesus name, amen.

Today I want to share about burnout, balance, or flameout.

My comments are really directed toward those who are involved in health care work or missions and have the opportunity to positively impact the lives of people that they serve.

I presume that since you are attending this AMEN conference that you have a burden also to reach others for the kingdom of heaven.

We are told and we recognize that this work is great and the laborers are few.

That brings us to the question, how do we do what we do without burning out?

How do we balance meeting the needs of others without flaming out?

The answer to this question is very specific for individual situations.

For example, some of us are energized by social interactions with others while others are drained.

The added reality is that our work is often very demanding, and it seems never-ending.

The technology that we interact with to do our work is ever-changing.

And the landscape that we work in is guaranteed to look different in the years to come.

So I want to share today principles that you can consider as you balance the needs of others with your personal and your family's situation.

I want to start off by doing it in opposites.

I'm going to start off with flameout, what I call the consequence, followed by burnout, the problem, and then end on a positive note, balance, the solutions.

Now our reality is that any work that we do, regardless of whether we're involved in ministry or health care work, can be stressful.

There are many reasons why this can be the case.

For 1, we know that we can have the toll of long hours.

We can have the demands of patients, even our employer.

The majority of those of us who are involved in health care work are not in private practice.

The majority of us are employed by someone.

We have the emotional toll of the job and we have changes in regulatory requirements.

And on top of that, we have to deal with the documentation of care.

If I am sure that if I have to show of hands in here, how many are involved with some sort of electronic medical record or electronic health record?

I'm quite confident that it will be the majority of us in this room.

I don't know about you, but that can be very stressful.

In addition to that, you have the needs of the person, family, and friends.

There are reports that more than 50% of physicians and dentists are experiencing burnout.

It is even higher with medical and dental students.

What happens then when we are not able to meet these demands well?

Burnout and even flameout can continue, can occur if it continues too long.

Illustration was most aptly described by Pamela Wibble, a family physician and a pioneer in the ideal medical care movement.

He framed this photo to give his parents at his medical school graduation.

He was an adored first grandchild, a joyful little prankster who made everyone laugh.

His aunt Edna told a story that when he was in grammar school, Catholic grammar school, Vincent had his feet up on the chair in front of him.

Sister Agnes came by and told him to put his feet down and Vincent said, I have to keep my legs up.

Well here's Vincent at his high school prom.

He was an athlete, gifted artist, compassionate, sensitive, gregarious, but private.

He was a compulsive perfectionist, always a good kid, his family said.

No addictions, just straightforward, normal, good guy, according to his mom.

Here is his picture at medical school graduation, just 25 years old and 2 months after starting a prestigious surgical residency in New York City, he dies by suicide.

What happened during Vincent's medical school training?

Wibble went to several of his family members to find out what happened.

His mom said that he became disappointed, disillusioned.

He lived near the hospital where he worked, but he would drive the 45 minutes home every chance he got in order to sleep in his own bedroom.

He lost a lot of weight and his jokes and his laughs were gone.

His family was concerned, but they thought that it was the adjustment to a demanding profession.

Vincent would tell them stories of how surgeons publicly humiliated the interns, how he and his partner would fall asleep leaning against the walls in the hospital while waiting for their patient's turn to get a scan.

He spoke about his doubts, about saving this 1 guy who jumped out of a building when he was caught assaulting a young girl who was being treated in the room, the adjacent room in the emergency room.

He spoke of the sisters, victims of a car accident, brought to the emergency room which stunned him for a moment because they looked just like his aunt and his mother, who often traveled in the car without their seat belts on.

Vincent took a belt and hung himself in his closet and he left this note.

Caitlin and her mom, and Caitlin in high school, she was a deep thinker, an artist, a poet.

Her extended family said Caitlin was 1 of the happiest people on this earth.

This is Caitlin in medical school, 23 years old.

She was an introvert with social anxiety.

She always had a lot of close, few close friends, but none in medical school.

Everybody was busy studying, she said, and people just went their own way.

She went on a strict diet, started running marathons, lost a lot of weight.

She would run 10 to 12 miles before class every day and still excelled in medical school, acing the step 1 exam.

Unfortunately, she did not live to celebrate her results because she committed suicide by a helium overdose, like a well-planned school project.

She left this two-page suicide note in which she claimed long-term depression, but she hid it to protect herself and her family.

I know you may not have understood why I didn't seek help.

I don't know if I can really explain why, but this choice makes sense to me.

I know I had such a seemingly bright future, and I know I would have been such a successful doctor and wife and mother but all I have ever desperately wished for is to not feel like not existing would be preferable to being who I am and living the life I live.

Your daughter." Caitlin's grieving mother, unable to recover from her daughter's suicide, died by a helium overdose 1 year later.

Now I'm showing you this to not overwhelm you, but I just wanted to show you the most recent statistics that I could find at the CDC.

2014, these are the 10 leading causes of death by age group in the United States.

This is the most current that I could find.

Now, suicide is the green box, green boxes, and you will notice, I just want to show you the last column, total.

Suicide represents the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.

The blue box, blue boxes refer to unintentional deaths.

When we look at the unintentional causes, the leading causes of injury deaths by age group, highlighting violence-related injury deaths, you will notice the green boxes again.

And when you add up the green boxes in the very far right column, it is the second leading cause of death by unintentional injuries.

What is even more remarkable is that when you look at the age groups starting at age 35 through 65, suicide is number 3.

I found this interesting that some of people on this list we were surprising and some were not.

Scientists have a 1, by the way, the risk of 1 is the average population, so scientists represent a 28% higher risk, 1.28.

Farm workers, lowest paid, long hours, hard work, 1.32.

There are some studies that suggest that working around a lot of electricity has an effect on the brain.

I don't know, that's for another lecture another time.

Now we would expect police officers, it is a problem that plagues both women police officers and African-American male police officers because their suicide rate is higher than their compatriots, with suicide rates among women 2.03 higher, and amongst the African-American male policemen, 2.55 times higher than the average.

Todd Guthrie

Free Radicals in Practice: The Good, the Bad, and Oxidative Stress

The title of the time we're gonna share together, I can't resist it and those of you who know me it's when I see a title for a conference it's other words start going through my mind and I know free isn't in the title of this conference but radical is in practice so I started thinking of you know how can we tie some science into this?

Have you ever wondered what Jesus might use as his object lessons today?

What we now understand through science can be seen as a teaching tool.

Can you imagine hearing him say the kingdom of heaven is like free radicals and antioxidants?

Notice this quote from Ellen White, every phase of experience, every act of life, she says, the Bible is its own expositor.

Scripture is to be compared with scripture.

The student, that's each of us, should learn to view the word as a whole and to see the relation of its parts.

He should gain a knowledge of its grand central theme of God's original purpose for the world, of the rise of the great controversy and of the work of redemption.

He should understand the nature of the 2 principles that are contending for supremacy and should learn to trace their working through the records of history and prophecy, and we might say physiology, to the great consummation.

He should see how this controversy enters into every phase of human experience, how in every act of life he himself reveals the 1 or the other of the 2 antagonistic motives, and how whether he will or not, he is even now deciding upon which side of the controversy he will be found.

The book Education, page 190, you're probably familiar with that.

And as the song we just heard, the words we speak, the actions we take, are going to have consequences in other people's lives.

Not under the control or in the power of another, able to act or be done as 1 wishes, have our own way, not physically restrained, obstructed or fixed, unimpeded, or as an adverb, without cost or payment.

Notice the obvious spiritual implications especially of without cost or payment and of course the others as well.

What are the costs and responsibilities of freedom, both individual and corporate?

God's justifying grace has been given to all men as a free gift.

If the Son makes you free, you are free Indeed.

We should never forget that in all our dealings with our patients and colleagues, this principle holds true.

The rich blessings of the gospel through the cross of Christ are in stark contrast to the bondage and suffering of humanity and Adam, these 2 antagonistic principles.

And the blessings in Christ are free to all.

Second Corinthians 5, 14 and onward tells us that we see others differently in this view of the cross.

The 1 man's offense, many died by that 1 offense, but much more by the grace of God and the gift by the grace of God in the 1 man, Jesus Christ, this abounded to many.

It results in justification of life for all men.

Well, it's a noun, a group of atoms behaving as a unit in a number of compounds.

It comes from a word meaning root or having roots, relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something or advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change or we might say, we might add spiritual to that list, spiritual change.

Because as these 2 principles are contending for the supremacy and the great controversy, we're taking 1 side or the other, and we want to be radical in the spirit of John the Baptist in our own lives and helping others in their lives.

Even now the ax is laid at the root of the tree.

When John the Baptist is preparing the way, he indicates that the gospel of Jesus Christ will be radical in the truest, purest sense.

The real power of a word like radical is the power of the idea, it communicates.

And I think especially true in terms of the gospel.

Most of us here in the practice of some aspect of healthcare or perhaps in pastoral practice, we all deal with people.

All of us expect our walk with Christ to have practical effects in and around us.

We're learning what is most important life and in practice and that's a lifelong process.

The definition here to perform repeatedly or acquire skill, to learn by repeated performance is especially important for us.

We're all in this type of practice, but what are we practicing?

What are we wanting to really become good at, habitual?

How can we naturally, habitually, be freely radical in the best sense, in the gospel sense.

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each 1 may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

So these blue highlighted words are all that same Strong's word for practice, for habitual.

And what we do is important, it has eternal consequences.

The fact that God has given eternal life to all men and his son as we read in 1 John 5 12 means that all, including us, will reveal what they have done with that life, whether they have made a habit, a practice of letting that life have its way, live out thy life within me.

Or whether they have resisted and rejected that life and gone destructively in their own ways.

When we look at the grand discoveries of science, when the understanding of some mechanism or property of life, physiology dawns upon us.

We feel educated, we feel like we know something.

It's still wise to ask ourselves the question, what do we really know?

What does this knowledge tell us about God as he created all things and it is his power that sustains all things.

In science without the Bible that by which things are held together is cohesion but when it is asked what is cohesion the only answer that is that by which things are held together.

In science without the Bible, that by which all things are held up or held in place is gravitation.

But when it is asked, what is gravitation, The only answer is that by which all things are held up or held in place.

But such answers as these are not answers at all.

They are simply the saying of the same thing in a different way.

Yet it is a fact that such is just the instruction that is given in the books and such is the teaching that is given to students.

But by it the mind of the student is caused to travel in a circle and is left wandering there, ever inquiring and finding no certain or satisfactory answer.

It is proper for a student to ask what holds in their places the worlds and all things and it is proper enough and is it, it is proper enough that the answer should be gravitation.

It is then proper for him to ask what is gravitation but it is not in any sense proper to answer that gravitation is that by which all things are held in their places.

And he goes on to say the same thing about cohesion.

And that's what is taught in science apart from God, science without the Bible, but it's not genuine science.

We need to know the reality of the things themselves.

In science with the Bible it is altogether different in that when a child or a student asks what holds all things in their places?

He can be told that it is gravitation and when he asks what is gravitation, he can be answered God made the worlds by his son, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power.

Thus gravitation is the power of God, manifested in his word through Jesus Christ.

And he goes on to say the same thing is true of cohesion.

This is a manifestation of the power of God.

He who believes the Bible and thus becomes so acquainted with God and the power of His Word that he knows and rests with perfect confidence in the knowledge that God possesses and is revealed in the Bible a philosophy and a science that it is as far beyond any that this world ever knew as heaven is higher than the earth.

It's counted as fairly beyond the pale of respectability, but all that makes no difference with the truth.

And it is the everlasting truth that in the Bible, there is more and better science, truer and more profound philosophy than this world ever knew or ever can know without this book.

He is ever ready and is waiting to be the teacher of all.

He will willingly teach all who will be taught by him.

And to all such, he will teach all knowledge and all wisdom, all science and all philosophy.

For in him are hid all the treasures of philosophy and science, and ye are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power.

And so, when we look at science, we examine what's going on even at the molecular level, we might well ask, what does this teach me about the power of God, about the sin problem, and about my own experience?

It is in that spirit, the spirit of the learner, the student, that I would like to explore our topic this evening.

Well, it's an atom or molecule or ion that has unpaired valence electrons.

Electrons are packets of the power of God that we call negative charge.

These molecules are usually highly reactive.

That is, they'd like to have a neutral charge.

They can be formed through a process that puts enough energy into the parent molecules, such as ionizing radiation, heat, electrical discharges, electrolysis, chemical reactions.

John Torquato

Radical Practice

It's been a full 11 years since I've actually got a chance to talk to this group.

About 11 years ago I came and spoke to Amen.

And at that time I had not been exposed to so many people at the same time and in the same place that were interested in using their medical practices, their dental practices, their practice of health care to complete the gospel commission.

Before that, I, well let me just say that I felt so good when I stood in front of that group of people.

It felt joy just wash over me because I sensed I wasn't alone.

That there were yet 7, 000 who had refused to bend the knee.

Standing in front of that crowd 11 years ago, God received praise in that moment just as he does right now from me because you exist.

Personally, I believe that amen is a sign.

We know that the last work to be done in missionary lines is the medical missionary work.

And if you don't find a bunch of medical missionaries out there, how close are we to the end?

But just like prior to Christ's first advent, as you see the world coming into focus to prepare the way for Christ, as you start to see medical missionaries rising up and organizations and people organizing themselves around medical missionary work, rising up out of the grassroots.

Just like God prepared the world for Christ's first event, God is preparing the world for his second advent.

And because of that, you are a sign of Christ's near coming.

I want to give you 5 principles today of radical medical ministry that will transform your lives, your practice.

This is not from any book, this is from simply the book of my experience.

So you can take it or leave it, I won't be offended.

But I'll tell you this is what I have learned and I want to share it with you today.

The first principle that I'm going to share with you is to love radically.

You see, being here, like I said, from 11 years ago, makes me think of my dear friend, Roger Ferguson.

Roger came with me and helped me at my presentation 11 years ago.

And Roger was this gentle man, a kind and loving and sincere person.

He was the kind of person you'd like to be around because he's so quiet and unassuming and careful of other people.

And the way he took care of people made you just feel included.

But I'm going to tell you a little bit of a secret about Roger and I.

In our first conversation in my office, Roger came at me like a she-bear.

I don't like doctors, he said as he stood over me.

Give me my prescription and I'm out of here, I'll be out of your face.

Here I go, he's a 6'4", 240-pound university professor of engineering, And this guy's leaning over the table with his finger in my face telling me how he doesn't like me and he never met me before.

I got to know Roger and I realized that this in your face guy was not that same kind of guy.

You see, this guy was powerful and radical in his love And what had happened is he radically loved his wife.

And his wife had cancer that had taken over her body and would 1 day take her life.

And in the process of her illness, her interactions with physicians were so poor, and so degrading, and so dehumanizing to her.

She had been treated so rudely that Roger, who loved his wife radically, came at Anything that looked like it might get in her way, like a she-bear.

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