Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.

AMEN Australia 2018: Healing, Surviving, Thriving

<p>Presentation given at the AMEN Australia 2018 annual conference held in Adelaide, Australia, www.amenaustralia.org.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Allen Lloyd

Safely Spiritually Negotiating the First Couple of Years of Working

So the talk title that I have here is safely spiritually negotiating the first years of working.

That is an important presentation, but I see in some of the attendees that not all of you are going to fit in the first years of working, but it is important in regards to decision making.

I think what I'm gonna be talking about is regarding decisions, because in your first years of working, there are some major decisions to be made.

And that is where you're going to set up a practice, and who you're gonna set it up with, and who you're gonna work for, and those sorts of things.

And I'd like to expand a little bit more about what I mentioned on Friday night.

You know, it was important for me to get appropriate mentorship.

Yes, I was committed to the Lord's cause.

That's how I'd gotten into medicine to begin with.

But I was surrounded by influences that when you're daily surrounded, yearly surrounded, by these influences, they can have a negative impact.

You know, the world thinks and acts differently.

And virtually all of the people that I was dealing with in the hospital setting were very much the worldly mindset.

Very, in my staff setting, I did have the ability to choose my own staff, and that's a Big plus.

I would encourage you, if at all possible, you know, it may be discouraging you after you heard what Andrew Pennington said, but I hope it doesn't discourage you.

Because when you have the ability to set your own practice environment.

There is much that can be done, as mentioning, where he's praying with his receptionist and his staff before every patient is there.

These staff members who are also interested in soul winning, they become nice reporters for you.

Because 1 of the things that I can just tell you, and this is 1 of the beautiful things of running a residential program, is it really takes that type where your entire staff is on the same page and they're seeing what's going on to really get to know these people.

When they're in your office, they can put on an act for 45 minutes or an hour while you're evaluating them.

And you can actually be led astray in regards to what some of the core issues are, particularly if you're in a hurry.

But when they leave that office, They're going to be talking to the nurse.

There's gonna be tests that are gonna be ordered.

And just their response back can be very insightful.

And all of a sudden, with your visit, plus what they're telling you about, you can start seeing a little more of the deep issues underneath that could really help you to be able to transform that patient and say the right things and do the right things that'll be transformative in regards to that patient.

It can be done to the extent it can be done, but I still, in part, to keep my hospital medicine skills up, I work as a hospitalist about 2 to 3 days a month to help alleviate the other hospitalists.

And I'm in a secular hospital, secular environment, and I'm surrounded by secular people.

And yeah, I can make an influence in that patient's visit.

And I can even pray with that patient, which I've done and prayed before procedures and helped say things like that, but I can just tell you when you have an entire staff working together on that, it is exponentially the power.

And that's 1 of the reasons why the Spirit of Prophecy recommended that we have teams of medical missionary workers working together in regards to helping these patients along life's way.

So what I would recommend, particularly if you're a young clinician, that you team up with someone who is really a Christian competent physician.

Someone who knows their stuff well and someone who is an example in their Christianity and in their soul winning, that you also team up with a church.

1 of the things that really helps us and has helped me be far more successful is when I have a minister that's working together with me and we're on the same page.

And that is a crucial part of things as well.

And so you want a church that can be supportive.

Now prior to me making my decision on where I was going to end up, my father was concerned about me going to medical school at Loma Linda University.

I don't know if you know the history of the outcomes at Loma Linda University, but the outcomes are that over 90% of those Adventist physicians who enter in will not even end up being a tithe paying Seventh-day Adventist.

And so the secular influences and the entertainment industry around and all of the fun things to do.

And often, and I've seen it happen, many of my colleagues were just as devoted to the Lord as I was.

But in 4 years, They were not devoted to the Lord anymore.

They thought they were, but you can drift so far, and it happens so gradually that you don't even realize you've left the Lord.

He says, when you go to Loma Linda University, find a church that you can be active in, and a church that you can be fed in.

Now, Loma Linda University, we have a lot more choices I'm sure than what you have in some of your cities here in Australia.

But I went to a different church every Sabbath, and I could find churches I could be fed in, but they didn't need me.

They were big churches, and they didn't even notice I was there, and anything like that.

And then I could find churches I could be active in, but there was no feeding of the soul going on at Sabbath school or in church.

And I must admit that I was getting pretty frustrated come February, you know?

We started in August, it's my freshman year and it's February.

And I'm actually asked to, how I tried this church out, is my roommate, who was also a first year medical student, was a virtuoso violinist.

And he was often being asked to do special music.

And so he was asked to play special music in this church 24 miles away from Loma Linda.

I don't know if Paul Rankin is not here, but Paul Rankin talked about hang gliding.

And this is where the hang gliding occurs.

And in fact, the pastor actually lived a few doors down from where all the hang gliders would take off from.

And the updraft in that area is such that you don't even have to run to take off, you just have someone holding your kite down.

And then they let go and you're off, you've taken off.

So that's why Paul loves to go to Loma Linda, is to have that experience.

But in this church that I was asked, and I'm not a virtuoso pianist.

In fact, I felt, I said, I can't play and accompany you.

You're a virtuoso violinist and I am not a virtuoso pianist.

He couldn't find anyone else to accompany him.

And so he says, tell me what you can play, and I'll accompany you.

And he just improvised along with me and it sounded pretty good.

And we went up there and did special music.

But the sermon there was the best sermon I had heard the whole time I'd been in Loma Linda.

This preacher was preaching on the minor prophets every Sabbath.

This was Hagiai, I can still remember the sermon.

He was telling how the Bible was more written for today than the day it was written in.

It was just a small church, 50 people in this church.

And of course, they noticed me, they were so glad to have a couple of medical students up there, and they invited us over for potluck and those type of things, and they were talking about how they were trying to reach their community, and we'd love to have medical students there.

And that next day, I went back to, or I came back that evening, but I told my other housemate, we actually had a house where there were 7 medical students living in this house.

And it was kind of in the wealthy section, but there were 7 of us that got together to pay a little bit and be in this house.

And so 1 of my other roommates, who I was more spiritually connected with, we were both very interested in doing the Lord's will, maybe the most, out of anyone in that house.

I told him about what had happened in that church.

And he says, I'm gonna stop the church I'm going to and I'm gonna go up there.

Because I was telling him, I'm a poor medical student.

The 24 miles of gas up that mountain and back, I can't afford that every week.

He says, well, I'll do it 1 week, and you do it the next.

And I says, but doesn't your girlfriend go to the Redlands church?

And he says, I was thinking of breaking up with her anyways.

I said, don't break up with her because of me.

He says, no, I was going to do it anyways.

He says, this will just be perfect timing.

And so he ended up breaking up with her and we ended up going up to that church.

And before long, we had been talking about it with other medical students.

There were 4 carloads of medical students going up to this country church.

And we would put on health seminars in the afternoon.

Safely Spiritually Negotiating the First Couple of Years of Working

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