The Point of Medicine

The Point Blog

The following articles fall under this category of content within The Point of Medicine.

Treasures, Tombs and Eternity

By Autumn Dawn Galbreath, MD, MBA | April 8, 2025
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One thing the Egyptians are incredibly good at is the preservation of their artifacts and education about them. The last stop we made yesterday was to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, a museum that tries to teach the 7,000+ years of Egyptian history chronologically, tying the artifacts, structures and stories together in a way that gives an arc and a progression to the story.

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Let Us Not Forget Ongoing Christian Persecution

By Jeffrey Barrows, DO, MA (Bioethics) | March 13, 2025
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During Lent as we approach Resurrection Day, a number of Christians choose to “give up” something they enjoy, such as a specific food or habit, to identify with the suffering of Jesus on the cross. One habit to consider adopting during this season is the admonition found in Hebrews 13:3: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (ESV).

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Kuczewski Errs: Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

By Robert E. Cranston, MD, MA (Ethics) | March 10, 2025
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In a recent Hasting Center Bioethics Forum Essay, “Supporting Patients and Students Who Are Immigrants: What to do and Why Most Bioethicists Won’t Do It,” Mark Kuczewski asserts that bioethicists, and medical systems in general, should not cooperate with any governmental attempts to identify or detain aliens who seek medical care within our hospitals and clinics.

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President Trump’s Executive Order on IVF

By Andrè Van Mol, MD | March 3, 2025
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On February 18, President Trump signed an executive order titled, “EXPANDING ACCESS TO IN VITRO FERTILIZATION.” Noting “the importance of family formation,” the prevalence of infertility (“as many as one in seven”), and the high cost of IVF ($12,000 to $25,000 per cycle), the administration committed itself to a policy which would “ensure reliable access to IVF treatment” by “Lowering Costs and Reducing Barriers to IVF.”

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An Update on PEPFAR from CMDA

By Jeffrey Barrows, DO, MA (Bioethics) | February 13, 2025
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In 2003, President George W. Bush launched a program called The President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has become one of the most successful foreign aid programs in United States history. According to the State Department, as of September 30, 2023, PEPFAR has saved 25 million lives and enabled 5.5 million babies to be born HIV-free.

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“Nature” Does a Face Plant: Promoting the Transgender Suicide Myth

By Steven Willing, MD | January 16, 2025
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What if an original research paper published in a respected international scientific journal declared that keeping men out of women’s sports or banning the gender transitioning of minors caused an increase in suicide attempts among transgender youth? Wouldn’t you expect them to show actual evidence of an increase? Well, you ought. But they didn’t.

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Social Transitioning is Neither Neutral nor Benign

By Andrè Van Mol, MD | January 9, 2025
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Here at CMDA, we’re often asked about why we, as an organization broadly and as our advocacy team specifically, seem to be more concerned about policy and ethics and less so about domestic missions—for our neighbors in need here in the U.S. These inquires and suggestions are often made out of concern that our engagement in legislation and the ethics around certain life issues comes at the expense or dismissal of the vulnerable.

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A Mission to Protect the Vulnerable

By JC Bicek | December 18, 2024
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Here at CMDA, we’re often asked about why we, as an organization broadly and as our advocacy team specifically, seem to be more concerned about policy and ethics and less so about domestic missions—for our neighbors in need here in the U.S. These inquires and suggestions are often made out of concern that our engagement in legislation and the ethics around certain life issues comes at the expense or dismissal of the vulnerable.

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“Gender-affirming Healthcare” for Adults: Is It Helpful?

By Andrè Van Mol, MD | October 28, 2024
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With transgender interventions on minors, aka “gender-affirming healthcare” (formerly transgender-affirming therapy), falling and failing under scrutiny in about half the U.S. states and numerous nations, it was predictable that proponents of gender transition ideology would double down on claiming it is proven to help adults with gender dysphoria/transgender identification.

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Protecting Life Before Actions Can’t be Undone: 2024 State Abortion Ballot Amendments

By Nicole D. Hayes | August 30, 2024
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If the electorate is not transparently educated about the devastation these amendments will bring, we can almost be assured the trickery used by abortion proponents will result in permanent loss. Repealing constitutional amendments is extremely difficult, so we must pray and do everything we can to oppose the amendments.

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A Call to Engage in Contemporary Culture

By Steven A. Foley, MD | August 5, 2024
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We are living under common grace. As Colson states it, “God’s power sustains creation holding back sin and evil because of the fall and that would otherwise overwhelm his creation like a great flood.” We can be incredibly thankful for that common grace, but what is our role? What is our responsibility in holding back evil?

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Lies, Love and Civil Discourse

By Robert E. Cranston, MD, MA (Ethics) | July 11, 2024
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Today, recognizing the numerous forms of lying to which we are tempted, our communication is to be characterized by veracity, courage and love. Especially in our highly polarized society, when we see the stakes of political decisions as being so high, it is tempting to fudge the truth to win an argument, or avoid speaking the truth, in order to keep the peace and avoid painful confrontation.

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The Anxious Generation

By Steven Willing, MD | July 1, 2024
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Are skyrocketing rates of mental illness among the young caused by smartphones? A growing chorus of mental health professionals and research psychologists say “absolutely yes.” What does the evidence show, what can we do about it and why are religious conservatives largely being spared?

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Suffering and Facing Death

By JC Bicek | June 6, 2024
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No fewer than 20 states introduced assisted suicide bills so far in 2024, and polling suggests the majority of Americans are sympathetic to the cause. According to the stats, this must mean a number of supporters would at least call themselves Christians, which strikes me as a sad development considering the rich tradition of Christian thought regarding how we should live in our final days.

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Responding to ACOG…Again

By Steven A. Foley, MD | April 4, 2024
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On February 27, 2024, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) released a “Consensus Statement on Threats to Reproductive and Maternal Health Care.” ACOG and 12 other organizations act as though they are speaking on behalf of all OB/Gyns to further their agenda that abortion is healthcare. I would like to respond, because they do not speak on my behalf.

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Why You Need Church

By Amy Givler, MD | March 28, 2024
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A 2023 report by Pew Research Center reported that 13 percent of Americans reported attending in-person worship services in the summer of 2020. I was not one of them. Until we had a vaccine, I did not want people gathering in groups.

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LGBTQIA+ and the Political Divide

By Elizabeth Woning | March 21, 2024
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To many, the Sexual Revolution evokes nothing more than memories of the summer of love, the emergence of contraception and the “freedom” for sexual expression. However, after years of warnings by Christian cultural commentators, the Sexual Revolution has overtaken the mainstream.

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The Status of Frozen Children

By Jeffrey Barrows, DO, MA (Bioethics) | March 11, 2024
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Anyone paying close attention to current events has likely heard about the Alabama Supreme Court decision declaring that frozen embryos created through IVF are legally children under the state’s constitution. The legal case arose when a person unauthorized by an IVF clinic destroyed frozen embryos from three Alabama couples who later filed a lawsuit against the clinic.

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ACOG Doesn’t Speak on My Behalf

By Steven A. Foley, MD | March 7, 2024
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In this statement, ACOG is calling for “the ability of every patient to access abortion when they need it…,” while further claiming that “abortion is an essential part of comprehensive healthcare.” As a practicing OB/Gyn, I again cannot stand by and let this organization speak on my behalf.

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Sophisticated Lies Endanger Everyone—Black, Brown, White and Other

By Nicole D. Hayes | March 4, 2024
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Language can be cloak and dagger—particularly when that “old serpent” is speaking who is none other than Satan. He is the father of lies, as noted in John 8:44. He is the original liar. Adam and Eve experienced Satan’s craftiness firsthand when he asked Eve in Genesis 3:1, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” and then went on to lie and say to her in Genesis 3:4, “You will not certainly die” (NIV).

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The Case for Conscience

By Anna Pilato, MA | February 12, 2024
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The United States has long been a beacon of freedom in the world, and it has held the hope of a better life even before it was an independent nation. We see this exhibited in history when the Pilgrims left Europe in 1620 to come to the New World.

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How Then Should We Live?

By JC Bicek | February 8, 2024
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What does the Bible say about the body in light of today’s gender confusion? How then do you think we should live? While not new, a form of a gnostic dualism is ascendent in our world today. Our postmodern culture has rallied behind a two-tiered view of the human being, promoting the mind or consciousness at the expense of the body.

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An Invitation to Sign the IFTCC International Declaration on Therapeutic and Pastoral Choice

By Andrè Van Mol, MD | February 1, 2024
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The International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counselling Choice (IFTCC) and their global community of member mental health and medical professionals have authored “An International Declaration on ‘Conversion Therapy’ and Therapeutic Choice,” proposing that “Signatories of this International Declaration call upon our governments, local authorities, human rights, media and religious organisations, to recognise that the right to self-determination is an established principle of international law, and therefore must include the right to shape and develop one’s own sexual identity, feelings and associated behaviours, and to receive support to do so.”

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900 Professors?

By Steven A. Foley, MD | January 30, 2024
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I am responding to the January 2024 article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology entitled, “A statement on abortion by 900 professors of obstetrics and gynecology after the reversal of Roe v. Wade.”

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Enlightening the View

By Jeffrey Barrows, DO, MA (Bioethics) | January 24, 2024
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Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022, the acrimony within the abortion debate has increased exponentially, accompanied by a marked increase in the amount of misinformation contained in the debate.

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Pitching Our Tents in This Present Darkness

By Nicole D. Hayes | November 30, 2023
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This clashing of worldviews calls me and other believers to confront darkness more often than we would prefer as we demonstrate and promote God’s truth and love in a world that pursues destructive answers for healing in the brokenness of our fallen humanity. Such healing only comes through a spiritual transformation, such that we are conformed to the mind of Christ (Romans 12:2).

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The 100th Birthday Party

By Amy Givler, MD | November 22, 2023
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Permit me to humbly suggest the following: If you are ever invited to a 100th birthday party, consider attending. And if the centenarian is one of your dearly departed mother’s most treasured friends, do whatever you can to attend.

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Four New Books Dealing with Transgenderism

By Andrè Van Mol, MD | November 16, 2023
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Publications exposing transgender ideology and its capture of academics, medicine, the entertainment industry, government and the business sector are picking up steam. What we might term the breakout books, those that caught traction and burst onto the public square addressing and countering the whirlwind of transgenderism.

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Who’s Calling Who a Blob?

By James L. Sherley, MD, PhD | November 9, 2023
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Well, there they go again: science reporters are calling human beings “blobs.” Not blobs as in the classic science fiction movie that wreaked havoc and death on unwitting victims. No, they are back to labeling innocent embryo-age human beings as mere “blobs of cells.”

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Pride Kills

By Steven Willing, MD | October 23, 2023
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Pride deceives us in many ways. One of the more dangerous expressions is to overestimate our competence and skill. In high-risk situations, the consequences can be disastrous. Too often, greed is offered as a simplistic explanation. The truth runs much deeper.

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Teaching Points from the Educator Award

By Andrè Van Mol, MD | June 22, 2023
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At the 2023 CMDA National Convention my wife Evelyn and I were honored, blessed and quite humbled to receive the 2023 Educator of the Year Award. This all happened under the watchful eye of Princeton’s Professor Robert George, whom I have admired for years (and no, I did not go full fan boy and embarrass CMDA, but we did talk privately a while). I was given a few minutes to share some thoughts which I am now offering you, my colleagues.

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Understanding the Mifepristone District Court Ruling

By Steven A. Foley, MD | June 5, 2023
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As an OB/Gyn, I would like to understand why the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) came out against the ruling in Texas by Judge Matthew Kaczmarek regarding Mifepristone in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine vs. FDA. ACOG says it is safe and effective in all their talking points, and it says that it is healthcare. According to Webster’s Dictionary, healthcare is “the maintaining and restoration of health by the treatment and prevention of disease especially by trained and licensed professions.”

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The AMA and Abortion

By Thomas W. Eppes, Jr., MD | April 18, 2023
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Ever since the American Medical Association’s (AMA) meetings in both the summer and fall of 2022, I have felt a huge tug on my heart by the Holy Spirit. And that tug is persistently asking me to address the issue of unrestricted abortions as a woman’s right to authority over her body, including the unrestricted right to abortion.

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It Isn’t Hate to Speak the Truth

By Amy Givler, MD | March 23, 2023
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I am one of those parents who didn’t let her daughter (though she begged and begged) read the Harry Potter book series when she was 10…and 11…and 12. Even though her friends were reading them. Even though the whole world seemed crazy about them, and she was an avid reader.

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Pushing, Pulling and the Tension in Between

By Autumn Dawn Galbreath, MD, MBA | March 16, 2023
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Just today in a text exchange about job hunting, a CMDA friend reminded several of us that God can lead us in a variety of ways. Many times, God calls us, or pulls us, into the roles He has for us. We feel clearly instructed, and we feel certain we are following His leading as we step into a new chapter, be it a job or school or church or a new family decision. As American Christians, we are used to thinking about decision-making this way, I think. We feel that we must not know the right thing to do if we don’t feel pulled to one of the options. We pray for clarity, and we seek advice because we want that sense of calling, of being pulled in the direction God would have us to go.

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Protecting our Healthcare Conscience Freedoms

By Jeffrey Barrows, DO, MA (Bioethics) & Anna Pilato, MA | February 27, 2023
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We have been privileged as American healthcare professionals to practice medicine according to our sincerely held beliefs, at least until the relatively recent past. However, as many of our members know from personal experience, those conscience freedoms are coming under increasing attacks from several quarters. In this post, we want to remind the reader of the conscience protections that exist at the federal level and explore why those protections are currently endangered.

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Moral Injury of a Different Kind

By Craig Nakatsuka, MD | February 16, 2023
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Much is being made of the “moral injury” healthcare professionals suffer, which, rightly so, has been exposed and highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moral injury consists of an accumulation of a number of things, such as straining to care for the overwhelming number of incredibly sick patients, having to make wrenching decisions on prioritizing use of medical resources, etc. The focus on the subject is to address a practical need, like workforce supply in the face of increasing burnout among healthcare professionals, but it also addresses a personal human desire to ensure the personal well-being of another, which is the healthcare professional in this case.

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Precious in God’s Sight

By Amy Givler, MD | January 26, 2023
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When I was a child—maybe six, maybe seven—I went through a phase of suspecting the entire world existed as a massive play with one star—me. That is, I was the main actor and the rest of humanity played supporting roles. That is, the universe revolved around me. That is, I was all ego.

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A Call to Holiness

By Autumn Dawn Galbreath, MD, MBA | January 25, 2023
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This week, our kids’ Christian school published The Statement. They sent it out with The Letter. And they asked for The Signature. And once again, our family began the now-familiar dance of shame, grief, anger, prayer, isolation, indignation and so many other emotions that bubble in the toxic stew Christian organizations often throw onto families like us.

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The Ghost of Savita Halappanavar

By Steven A. Foley, MD | January 9, 2023
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The official journal of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG), Obstetrics and Gynecology, (often referred to as the Green Journal because of its traditional green cover) recently featured an article entitled “The Ghost of Savita Halappanavar Comes to America.” The article refers to a pregnant woman in Ireland named Savita Halappanavar who died in 2012 from an inappropriately managed second trimester miscarriage.

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The Travails of Moral Distress for the Abortionist

By Jeffrey Barrows, DO, MA (Bioethics) | November 28, 2022
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It will come as no surprise that the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently released a special issue filled with articles and opinions arguing for the absolute necessity of access to legal abortion. One opinion that caught my attention was entitled “Implications of the Dobbs Decision for Medical Education Inadequate Training and Moral Distress.” CMDA recently publicly released a new position statement on moral distress, so I was naturally intrigued. Were the authors of this opinion piece actually going to make the argument that the lack of access to elective abortion, a procedure that has been considered immoral for thousands of years, will cause moral distress among upcoming students and residents? Exactly.

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