God asks for and deserves our best, the first fruits of our labor. This was true in ancient Israel and remains true today.
Read MoreApparently, Medscape does a yearly survey on physician burnout, and the one that just came out asked 13,000 physicians from 29 specialties about their personal experience with stress and signs of burnout. Being in the midst of a global pandemic, it won’t surprise anyone that burnout rates are rising.
Read MoreTo introduce diverse health care students to Christian medical missions allowing them to not only become familiar with the cultural, social, spiritual, medical and dental problems in developing countries, but also to obtain the skills to participate, in training and mentoring the next generation of missionaries in the name of Jesus.
Read More“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, ESV).
Read MoreThe Point Blog ARCHIVE
All articles found in the archive are more than three years old.
The purpose of this blog is to stimulate thought and discussion about important issues in healthcare. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily express the views of CMDA. We encourage you to join the conversation on our website and share your experience, insight and expertise. CMDA has a rigorous and representative process in formulating official positions, which are largely limited to bioethical areas.
The purpose of this blog is to stimulate thought and discussion about important issues in healthcare. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily express the views of CMDA. We encourage you to join the conversation on our website and share your experience, insight and expertise. CMDA has a rigorous and representative process in formulating official positions, which are largely limited to bioethical areas.
Read More“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8:4-6, ESV).
Read MoreCMDA Cincinnati exists to encourage, strengthen, and equip healthcare professionals to: live out the character of Christ in their homes, workplaces, communities, and around the world; cultivate communities to reach, mentor, and partner with healthcare professionals; pursue professional excellence and compassion through Christ-centered care; and provide spaces of dialogue to address relevant healthcare issues.
Read MoreBryan & Sharon Stoudt serve with CMDA in the Metro Phoenix Area. They enjoy helping Christian healthcare students and professionals thrive (not merely survive), and together have four (mostly) fantastic children. In their spare time, Bryan enjoys staying active and roasting coffee, while Sharon has a passion for all things French.
Read MoreThe Christian Medical Association at UVA exists to provide fellowship, encourage spiritual growth, and build authentic relationships both within the Christian community and the larger UVA medical community. Our desire is to serve and encourage both students and faculty and promote discussion on the intersection of faith and medicine. CMA is largely student-led and provides regular weekly meetings, Bible studies, and fellowship times. Other activities include an annual student retreat and occasional dinners with local physicians and residents.
Read More“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son…” (Luke 2:6, NIV).
Read MoreI knew I’d broken it before I hit the ground. I heard it snap. Breathing hard on the concrete, between cries for help, my mind moaned, “not again!”.
Yes. Again.
9 years ago I broke the same ankle, my right one. It was early Christmas morning and I was sleepily walking down the stairs to get baby Tylenol for my teething son. One wrong step and down I went. This time it was December 23rd. I think next year my family may cocoon me in bubble wrap and prop me up in the corner until New Year’s.
The Tony Hood, MD and Claudia Hood Medical Mission Scholarship seeks to inspire fourth year medical students to experience healthcare missions throughout the world. By doing so, they are hopeful recipients will be inspired to continue a lifetime of involvement in long- or short-term medical missions.
Read MoreOnce deemed the world’s wealthiest man, Howard Hughes seemingly had it all. But at the time of his passing, one missing possession unraveled a lifetime of accumulation.
Read MoreCongratulations! If you have a completed, legal will, you already understand the peace of mind that comes from having a plan in place.
Read More“I wish I could do more!”
It’s one of the most common sentiments we hear from supporters who are passionate about bringing the hope and healing of Christ to the world through healthcare professionals.
Did you know the average play in football takes just four seconds? But the huddle before the play often takes much longer.
Read MoreIn this position statement, CMDA provides biblical, social and medical support for a biblical view of sexuality defined as sexual activity within the confines of a marriage between a man and a woman. After detailing that support, the statement makes recommendations for the Christian community regarding how to respond to individuals struggling with same-sex attraction. The statement also provides recommendations regarding compassionate medical care for individuals struggling with homosexuality to Christian healthcare professionals. The statement concludes with recommendations regarding the importance of nondiscrimination.
Read MoreWhen I contracted COVID-19 on March 18, 2020, it was so early in the outbreak of the pandemic that my illness sent shock waves of fear through Inland Vineyard Medical Mission and Free Clinic where I serve as director. Everyone on our team was worried, including our student workers. How would we keep our team safe? And how would we still treat our patients? For most of our patients, we are their main source for both food and medical care. Where would they go if we suddenly shut our doors?
Read MoreOne week into a rotation in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), I found myself dreaming about the hospital. I was not dreaming about saying the wrong thing on rounds, but I was dreaming about our patients: Mr. Brown’s wife when she’d been told he may not survive his third surgery this admission; Mr. Thomas’s mom crying because she felt responsible for how he’d “turned out.” I told an attending I trusted that I was distressed by how much I was carrying patients’ stories with me, and she graciously admitted to me she’d struggled with the same thing early on in training. The solution, she said, is to not get so attached. “That’s how you burn out,” she said.
Read MoreHow the spiritual needs of an academic-based group of physicians and scientists inspired the founding of the Christian Academic Physicians and Scientists (CAPS), a specialty section of CMDA.
Read MoreWe are excited to release the newest edition of CMDA Today, formerly Today’s Christian Doctor. In this edition of the magazine, learn more about how one CMDA member has been focused on providing street medicine to the underserved throughout COVID-19. Plus, you can earn continuing education credits, get involved with a new CMDA specialty section, learn how to practice Christ-like presence in an age of burnout and more.
Read More“This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones, ‘I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life’” (Ezekiel 37:5, NIV).
Read More“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14, ESV).
Read MoreFive of we Americans were in London a few weeks ago at the invitation of the International Federation for Therapeutic & Counseling Choice (IFTCC) and Christian Concern to—along with colleagues from the United Kingdom, Norway and Australia (some by video presence)—to hold a one-day conference one block from Parliament challenging the proposed UK “conversion” therapy ban. I wrote the following at the request of Christian Concern and IFTCC, reprinted here with their permission.
Read MoreHow do we, as followers of Christ, engage the secular world?
This is no simple question, as the situations and circumstances are nearly infinite in possibility.
Since St. Augustine penned The City of God, there has been a general understanding that Jesus did not come to establish an earthly dominion. One might argue there have been “Christian nations” in a particular sense, but through most of Western history, church and state have always been separate power bases in an uneasy tension. Sometimes the church was on the ascendancy, as when Pope Gregory VII excommunicated emperor Henry IV (1050-1106) over the investiture controversy. You may have heard the story about how Henry stood three days barefoot in the snow to beg forgiveness. This feeds the popular myth of an all-powerful Catholic church embraced by many secularists. Less well known is that three years later, after his second excommunication, Henry IV led his armies against Rome, forcibly deposing Gregory VII and putting his own man in charge. So much for the “all-powerful” church. Power is fleeting, even for emperors and popes.
Read MoreWhile many people, including healthcare professionals, think that much of medical ethics is highly arbitrary and relativistic, with the single prevailing rule being patient autonomy, there are nonetheless some widely accepted principles within medical ethics. Principlism, which is based on four guides made famous by Beauchamp and Childress, includes patient autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. Unfortunately, for many people, these are the only ethical considerations needed to make informed decisions regarding right and wrong regarding patient care. Several other considerations are needed to decide complex issues rightly.
Read MoreOn December 1, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) heard arguments regarding the legality of abortion restrictions put into place by the state of Mississippi. The case is known as Dobbs v. Jackson. It is the most high-profile abortion case argued before the Supreme Court since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.
Read MoreAs I continue my series on faith and culture, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. But believe it or not, I didn’t choose this topic because of its appropriateness for Thanksgiving week. The topic has been close at hand in my own life of late, which has made me even more aware of its cultural applications.
By way of background, I must admit that I struggle to ask anyone to do anything for me. Asking a friend down the street to give my daughter a ride home from school is difficult and makes me think about what I need to do to even the playing field.
Read MoreIn the classic tale The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, perhaps most recognized by the 1939 movie version starring Judy Garland, young Dorothy Gale from Kansas and her dog Toto are transported via tornado to the strange Land of Oz and undertake a journey to see the Wizard of Oz in hopes he can return them to their Kansas home. Along her path on the Yellow Brick Road, Dorothy acquires three traveling companions who also have requests they hope the Wizard will grant, to give them each something they seem to lack: a brain, a heart and courage. The group’s progress and attempts to win the favor of the Wizard are hindered and harassed repeatedly by the Wicked Witch of the West and her minions, including incessant taunts about their shortcomings as well as a dire warning for Dorothy: “I’ll get you, my pretty—and your little dog, too!”
Read MoreI joined CMDA in 1982 in the middle of my OB/Gyn residency. At that time, I had known the Lord for about eight years but had not grown spiritually, because I had failed to find a solid, biblical church. Around that time, I finally found a church that helped me grow and develop in my Christian faith. With that growth, I began thinking about how I could incorporate my faith into the practice of medicine and discovered the Christian Medical & Dental Society (CMDS), which was CMDA’s name at that time.
Read MoreIdeology-driven legislative initiatives are underway to ban therapeutic choice—“conversion therapy” being the provocative, pejorative and ill-defined colloquial term used as a jamming tactic—in the U.S. and internationally for people with undesired same-sex attraction or levels thereof. Carolyn Pela and Philip Sutton have delivered a very welcome contribution in the form of a stringent study answering criticisms levied against what is more properly termed SAFE-T (sexual attraction fluidity exploration in therapy), SOCE (sexual orientation change efforts) or change-allowing therapy. The foundational requirement for such therapy—and for talk-therapy of any kind for any patient complaint—is a willing, motivated and self-directed client. Involuntary therapy is failed therapy, no matter the problem.
Read MoreDisciple-making Physicians — Do you long to see God work through your medical practice? We are the largest vasectomy reversal practice in the U.S. We plant God’s field for new birth in body and spirit. We train physicians spiritually and medically. If you proficiently enjoy simple skin suturing; if you want to make disciple-making disciples of Jesus among your patients; and if God is calling you to this work, we can train you in this medical ministry to fulfill the Great Commission. Come join us at our Warwick, Rhode Island location. We are also eager to talk with medical students about future clinic locations. Contact drdavid@thereversalclinic.com.
Website: https://www.thereversalclinic.com/
Read MoreAs far back as data exists, the universal experience has been that transgenderism was an extraordinarily rare occurrence, especially among females.
The last decade, however, witnessed an unprecedented increase in the numbers of young people identifying as transgender and seeking to transition. The surge was particularly striking among young adolescent females who were heavy users of social media but had no prior history of gender dysphoria. Something seemed amiss.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV).
Read MoreLast week, a friend asked me, as a family physician knowledgeable about COVID-19, to speak to a group she belongs to of community leaders, here in northeast Louisiana. I spoke about the current status of COVID infections in our area and the need for vaccination. The vaccination rate is low in our area—currently only 37 percent are fully vaccinated in our parish.
Read MoreThe Christian Medical Association® (CMA) is a ministry on the Christian Medical & Dental Associations® (CMDA) which provides resources, networking opportunities, education and a public voice for Christian healthcare professionals and students.
Founded in 1931, CMA provides programs and services supporting its mission to “change hearts in healthcare” with a current membership of around 19,000 healthcare professionals. CMA promotes positions and addresses policies on healthcare issues; conducts overseas medical education and evangelism projects; coordinates a network of Christian healthcare professionals for fellowship and professional growth; sponsors student ministries in medical dental, PA, and other healthcare training schools; distributes educational and inspirational resources; hosts marriage and family conferences; provides developing world missionary healthcare professionals with continuing education resources; and conducts academic exchange programs overseas. By being the “hands of Jesus” to needy people, CMA seeks to fulfill His Great Commandment (Matthew 22:39; 25:36) and His Great Commission (Matthew 28:19).
The Christian Medical Association® is a 501(c)3 and is governed by a Board of Trustees and House of Delegates. Policies of CMA are interpreted and applied by the Board of Trustees, which also establishes the guidelines for the executive director and his staff. An elected House of Delegates assists the board with recommendations on courses of action. The House of Delegates is composed of graduate, student, resident and missionary members who are elected for three-year terms by district and meets annually at the CMDA National Convention. Approximately 75 employees currently make up the staff of CMDA in the national office and U.S. field offices.
Read MoreSome investors take a long shot with a small amount of their money—and every once in a while, it pays off.
If you were among those who took a chance on Bitcoin, Ethereum or other cryptocurrency a few years back, you’ve probably seen some extraordinary gains.
So, now what?
Read MoreYou know this person. We all do.
No matter the conversation, they always steer the topic back to themselves. It’s predictable. Annoying. Sad.
Read MoreMany generous seniors bless the ministry of CMDA by giving directly from their individual retirement accounts. For those who qualify, IRA gifts offer a convenient, cost-effective and powerful way to bring the hope and healing of Christ to the world through healthcare professionals.
Read MoreConsidering a year-end gift to CMDA? Here are three tax-wise options that allow you to give in a substantial way without affecting your cash flow.
Read MoreMy kids have attended a classical, Christian school for many years. While we love the school for several reasons, its academic rigor set it apart from the several other schools we considered when making the decision to move our kids there 16 years ago. Other schools offered personal attention, others had great mission statements, others had in-depth biblical teaching. But it was all of these things, combined with high academic expectations, that sold us in the end, since the primary purpose of school is to educate kids academically. In the grammar school grades at our school, the students are taught to always do an “Excellence Check,” that is, to look back over their test or assignment and double-check for any errors prior to turning it in. The concept of the Excellence Check resonated with me when my kids were that age because it served as a regular reminder to them that they should be giving their best to each assignment. It was never a “Perfection Check” or a “Compare to Your Neighbor’s Performance Check.” It was a reminder for each student to do his or her best at all times. One student’s best might be a perfect score, while another student’s best might be much lower, but the expectation to do one’s best was clear. We might think of excellence as being at the top of the class or someone who stands out in his field, but that isn’t the way our school defined it, nor the way I am defining it here.
Read MoreIn the spring 2021 edition of CMDA Today, CMDA published an article that examined the ethical basis for taking a COVID-19 vaccine. The goal of the article was to reassure CMDA members of the good reasons to utilize the COVID-19 vaccines produced in the last year. Since the article’s publication, several members have written with ongoing questions and concerns about the ethical status of the vaccines due to their association with abortion-derived fetal cell lines. The purpose of this blog post is to address those concerns. An update on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines will be addressed in the future.
Read MoreThe active termination of pregnancy has existed since 1550 BCE, with the first documented abortion occurring in Egypt. The School of Hippocrates included the following prohibition against abortion in the oath named for him in approximately 400 BCE: “I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.” The attitude toward abortion throughout its 3,500-year history has varied from general acceptance to criminalization of the act, including the death penalty in certain circumstances. That range of perspective, except for the death penalty, remains today with the overall trend worldwide toward increasing cultural acceptance of abortion. The Christian Church from its earliest recorded Patristic writings outside of the New Testament condemned abortion as murder. This statement outlines and supports CMDA’s affirmation of the historical prohibition against abortion.
Read MoreThis ethical statement outlines CMDA’s affirmation of the value of all persons with cognitive impairment, recognizing their inherent dignity. CMDA believes that in spite of their cognitive impairment, they can lead meaningful lives with the help of caregivers, who deserve our help support and prayers.
Read MoreA program designed to serve domestic and international healthcare missionaries in their work as well as aid in the recruitment and retention of career medical missionaries. CMM also assists students with scholarships and overseas rotations.
Read MoreA program designed to serve domestic and international healthcare missionaries in their work as well as aid in the recruitment and retention of career medical missionaries. CMM also assists students with scholarships and overseas rotations.
Read MoreA program designed to serve domestic and international healthcare missionaries in their work as well as aid in the recruitment and retention of career medical missionaries. CMM also assists students with scholarships and overseas rotations.
Read MoreA program designed to serve domestic and international healthcare missionaries in their work as well as aid in the recruitment and retention of career medical missionaries. CMM also assists students with scholarships and overseas rotations.
Read MoreA program designed to serve domestic and international healthcare missionaries in their work as well as aid in the recruitment and retention of career medical missionaries. CMM also assists students with scholarships and overseas rotations.
Read MoreA program designed to serve domestic and international healthcare missionaries in their work as well as aid in the recruitment and retention of career medical missionaries. CMM also assists students with scholarships and overseas rotations.
Read MoreIntroducing a new video-based teaching program from CMDA to equip healthcare professionals to share the love of Christ with their patients and colleagues
Read MoreI had spent more than four years wishing and praying for a CT scanner at Tenwek Hospital, a 300-bed referral center in rural southwest Kenya where I was serving as a missionary surgeon in Africa. For years, every patient who came to us with a closed head injury, an abdominal mass or recurrent abdominal pain had to be referred to a larger hospital in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. But more often than not, patients wouldn’t or couldn’t go to Nairobi, regularly due to the high cost of travel and treatment.
Read MoreIn this edition of the new CMDA Today (formerly Today’s Christian Doctor), an inside look at CMDA’s strategic plan for future ministry, an introduction to a new video-based program on how to bring faith into patient care, a former abortion doctor shares her journey to advocating for life, and an exploration of the fences traditionally observed in healthcare with Dr. John Patrick.
Read MoreIn a weekly column on Sunday, August 29, Evangelical attorney David French declared “It’s Time to Stop Rationalizing and Enabling Evangelical Vaccine Rejection.”
Is that really a thing, you may ask?
There certainly is some evidence for that. Among those who have already been vaccinated against COVID-19, white Evangelicals trail the national average by 10 percent. A significant difference, but not a dramatic difference. In fact, the majority are vaccinated, according to this tweet displayed in the article.
Read MoreA program designed to serve domestic and international healthcare missionaries in their work as well as aid in the recruitment and retention of career medical missionaries. CMM also assists students with scholarships and overseas rotations.
Read MoreLegislation to ban so-called “conversion” therapy or practices for people with undesired same-sex attraction, gender dysphoria and other sexual minority issues is being put forward across the globe.
Read MoreSome systems have treated healthcare professionals with clinical skill loss in an almost punitive manner. Aside from careless incompetence, abandonment of patients or grossly unprofessional behavior, this is inappropriate, damaging to the professionals and harmful to society.
Read MoreMy recent contributions to this blog have explored some of the issues I have wrestled with throughout the turmoil of the last year and a half—namely, how faith has impacted the church’s response to issues, and where we have strayed from biblical truths in our responses. I have wrestled with faith and politics, faith and freedom and faith and fear. But the overarching issue, I think, in Christians’ response to recent—and, in fact, any—world events is love. There are only two things that Scripture tells us explicitly identify the Christ-follower: their fruit and their love. Jesus Himself said that all men would know we are His followers if we have love for one another (John 13:35). In fact, He repeatedly commanded that we love one another (John 13:34, John 15:12, John 15:17). And the rest of the New Testament tells us more than 20 times to love one another.
Read More“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Proverbs 14:12, ESV).
Read MoreI have a soft spot for public health. True, I’ve been a family physician for 32 years, and have touched many people’s lives, but decisions made by public health practitioners have an outsized impact on health.
Read MoreIn keeping with their history of producing eye-opening documentaries taking highly controversial societal trends head on, The Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) recently released a film on gender affirming therapy titled Trans Mission: What’s the Rush to Reassign Gender? Running just under 52 minutes, the feature presents activists, healthcare professionals, educators, parents and the patients themselves—among others—regarding “the medical and surgical transitioning of children.” The guests exhibit varied points of view, and they include members of both CMDA and the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds).
Read MoreAs we expected, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) issued its revised guidelines on stem cells and embryo experiments at the end of May 2021, and as expected, the ISSCR recommendations are rife with proposed experiments on young human beings. The new guidelines discard the 14-day limit on human embryo experiments in favor of no limits whatsoever, and they allow virtually unrestricted manufacture of human-animal chimeras of any type, as well as creation of genetically altered human embryos and lab constructed human embryo “models.” Very little is left in the category of “currently not permitted.”
Read MoreMost people understand the importance and power of having a completed will or trust in place. Through your will, you can provide for the needs of your loved ones and give meaningful support to CMDA and the other causes close to your heart.
Read MoreMost people understand the importance and power of having a completed will or trust in place. Through your will, you can provide for the needs of your loved ones and give meaningful support to CMDA and the other causes close to your heart.
Read MoreMany people make the mistake of leaving their IRA, 401(k) or other retirement funds to family, and then giving entirely different gifts from their will to charity. In most cases, this is the exact opposite of what should happen.
Read MoreThe battle in Congress over human-animal chimera experiments highlights the gulf between communists and Democrats and Republicans on the distinctions and boundaries between humans, animals and God.
Read MoreTo assist selected dentists in participating in their first Global Health Outreach short-term medical missions experience, enabling them to become familiar with the cultural, social, spiritual, medical and dental problems in developing countries while allowing them to serve the underserved.
Read MoreWhat if another study came to print asserting that sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) constituted harmful stressors to sexual minorities? What if a published letter to the editor in the same journal exposed gaping holes in the assessment? What if a reanalysis of the original study “in the strongest representative sample to date of sexual minority persons” revealed polar opposite findings: SOCE “strongly reduces suicidality” and that restrictions on SOCE may “deprive sexual minorities of an important resource for reducing suicidality, putting them at substantially increased suicide risk.” Now that would be something! And these things happened!
Read MoreI remember early on hearing in the news about a virus causing problems in China. It wasn’t long before we heard news of it spreading. As it began to spread, we were busy planning for March, our busiest month of mission trips. We send the most teams in the month of March, which gives mission opportunities for various schools during the annual spring break period. We sent our first two teams out before countries began closing their borders. While these two teams were still out of the country, we began cancelling our remaining trips. First it was for the month, then it became two and on through the summer. Before we knew it, we had cancelled every single remaining mission trip scheduled throughout the remainder of 2020—all as a result of COVID-19.
Read MoreWhen COVID-19 began sweeping around the globe in early 2020, career healthcare missionaries were faced with the option of staying in their countries of service to weather the storm or evacuating back to the United States before the borders closed. Without sufficient quantities of protective equipment for staff members, would rural mission hospitals be able to survive the pandemic? In countries where the medical infrastructure is limited at best, would there be enough resources? What about food and other supplies to help to meet the day-to-day needs if the airports closed?
Read MoreWhen 2020 started, I had a plan. A plan to follow God’s leading to serve on a mission trip in Southeast Cambodia. Like everyone else, those plans were completely changed when the pandemic hit.
But God.
Read MoreMore than a year ago, we watched as New York City and the surrounding area became the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis when the pandemic initially broke out in the United States. At this year’s CMDA Virtual National Convention, we shared stories from several CMDA members from the area whose lives and work in healthcare were impacted by the virus.
As we consider how COVID-19 has changed our world and our profession in healthcare, these stories share how God has worked in and through our members during this crisis.
Read MoreIn this edition of the new CMDA Today (formerly Today’s Christian Doctor), a group of CMDA members share their stories from serving on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, hear how our members had courage through the crisis as they served in both short-term and long-term missions during the pandemic.
Read MoreCliffhangers might be an amusing way to end a novel or sitcom, but it’s hardly the way to conclude your own life’s story.
Yet, this is exactly what will happen if you don’t complete or communicate your estate plans. Your loved ones will face the ultimate “cliffhanger.”
Without completing and sharing your will or trust, your family will be burdened with uncertainty about how you wanted your belongings to be distributed. They won’t have any clarity about the provisions you wanted to make for your family or for the causes close to your heart.
Read MoreHow do you ascertain God’s will for your life?
This is one of the greatest existential questions asked by followers of Christ, the young in particular. It is also one of the most profoundly misunderstood.
We may be taught that there is a divine roadmap for our lives, known to God yet unknown to us. We desire to know it for two reasons. First, we seek to please God and be good stewards. Second, we believe following his divine plan will maximize our earthly joy and blessing, but He offers no objective way of knowing it. What then, does that say about God? He created a divine master plan for us to follow, but we have to pry it out of Him? What sort of God would do that, and why? What if we make the wrong decision?
Read MoreThis scholarship seeks to encourage and enable students and residents to participate in mission rotations here in the United States, working with marginalized, underserved, and vulnerable populations in a Christian healthcare setting.
Read MoreThis scholarship seeks to encourage and enable non-white students and trainees to participate in mission rotations outside the United States.
Read MoreAs Christian healthcare professionals, God has granted us the high privilege and responsibility of serving others through healthcare. Part of this responsibility is that of maintaining clinical knowledge and skill in order to provide high quality care to our patients. If we lose some of our skills due to trauma, physical or mental illness, or due to normal aging, this may not always be optimally possible.
Read MoreWND recently published my op-ed designed to highlight the benefits of trusted doctors and faith-based organizations communicating on public health issues. I also noted what I considered to be several significant failures of government public health messaging.
Read MoreWhen John Donne wrote “No Man Is an Island,” he was lying on his sickbed, thinking, perhaps, it would be his deathbed. When he heard the church bells tolling for a person recently deceased, it got him thinking. His life—everyone’s life—was diminished by the death of that unknown person. We are all connected.
Read MoreSavvy Giving Options You Should Know
Care to know a secret?
Generous Christians just like you are giving to CMDA in savvy ways that have tremendous kingdom impact AND reduce their taxes!
Read MoreReduce Taxes and Burdens by Giving Property. Sometimes the cost and hassle of owning real estate outweighs the benefits your property once offered.
Can you relate to any of these ownership headaches?
For many, the iconic, self-made millionaire is the epitome of American life. The familiar, if not trite, mantra goes something like this: “Work harder than everyone else now and collect your millions later.”
Read MoreDuring a recent urgent care shift, a young welder presented with a metal foreign body in his eye. If you work in emergency medicine, urgent care or ophthalmology, or if you weld yourself, you are already aware of this occupational hazard. I was not aware of it prior to starting work in urgent care, but I must admit that it makes any dreams I may have had of learning to weld, thereby empowering myself to do more of my own home repairs, much less attractive. Tiny hot flecks of metal landing on the human cornea quickly embed themselves and become difficult to remove. Left there for a few days, they begin to rust, leaving a small rust ring on the cornea after the metal itself is removed—a rust ring which then has to be removed with a tiny drill called an eye burr.
Read MoreWell, that didn’t take long. As predicted, the parade of challenges to human dignity and human life discussed not long ago has already started to come to pass.
Read More“I’m still a zero’: Vaccine-resistant Republicans warn that their skepticism is worsening”) that examined the vaccine hesitancy of conservatives.
Read MoreSome would say it started earlier this year in January when the 2021 legislative session began in most states. Some would say it started with our increasingly more “live and let live” culture. However, the iniquity started before any of us were born.
Read MoreA new study authored by a socio-politically diverse team of psychologists evaluated a religiously diverse population sample of varied sexual identification and found that sexual minority people who reject LGB identification have positive outcomes that contradict the expectations of both minority stress and sexual identity development theories.
Read MoreIn last Saturday’s New York Times, Christian columnist Ross Douthat asks, “Can the Meritocracy Find God?”
“The secularization of America probably won’t reverse unless the intelligentsia gets religion,” writes Douthat. Nor is he sanguine for the prospects of that occurring. Douthat postulates two primary obstacles. First, “a moral vision that regards emancipated, self-directed choice as essential to human freedom and the good life.” Second, an entrenched anti-supernaturalism: “The average Ivy League professor, management consultant or Google engineer is not necessarily a strict materialist, but they have all been trained in a kind of scientism, which regards strong religious belief as fundamentally anti-rational, miracles as superstition, the idea of a personal God as so much wishful thinking.”
Read MoreIn a previous blog, I recommended John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center, and BreakPoint, his daily blog. The Colson Center has several formats for outreach including the Colson Fellow program, weekly podcasts, daily email briefings and Wilberforce Weekend. The Colson Center takes on many of the most pressing issues of the day and thoughtfully discusses ways in which we as Christians can engage our culture. As I said in that earlier blog, if you stop reading this right now and explore the Colson Center options, I will have succeeded in pointing you to a good path for improving your Christian walk.
Read MoreThe Washington Examiner recently published my op-ed on the radical Equality Act. This ideologically coercive and discriminatory bill, which has already passed the House and now is on the Senate calendar, will radically impact your professional career and your ability to live out your faith.
The commentary is below, followed by excerpts of a CMDA letter to U.S. Senators and of written testimony submitted by several CMDA members.
Read MoreI’ve read novels ever since my youth, and I’ve had an enduring fascination with the side character of the rich elderly female relative who “took to bed” decades earlier. Even before I was a doctor I wondered, “What illness caused her to ‘take to bed’?” There are seldom enough clues to unlock the mystery of which exact medical diagnosis she had that kept her in her bedroom. Writers of novels one to two centuries ago didn’t focus on those clues. She was, after all, a side character.
Read MoreFreedom. It’s an important word to us in the United States—arguably the most important word to the founding of our country.
Read MoreHuman Trafficking affects numerous children and teens throughout the world. One of the significant health consequences of this are mental health problems. Of note are high rates of anxiety, depression, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) identified in multiple studies of trafficked children. Full medical care of these individuals therefore will entail screening for the symptoms of mental health disorders. Treatment should involve therapy as much is available in the areas where they are recovering and learning to return to normal life. Medications can be considered for these mental health diagnoses as well with care taken in prescribing for children and teenagers. This article gives a framework for primary care professionals to establish mental healthcare as part of their management of children and adolescents who have been through human trafficking.
Read MoreWith millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses already plunged into American arms and hundreds of million more doses on the way, can healthcare professionals confidently receive the vaccines themselves and also recommend them for patients?
While responses to this question often involve important emotional factors that need to be addressed, this article focuses on three rational considerations: safety, efficacy and ethics.
Read MoreMy husband and I had just moved from Michigan to Texas for my first year of medical school at the University Health Science Center San Antonio. We walked up to the door of a house we had never visited, hand-in-hand wondering what the evening ahead would hold, with unfamiliar people, in this unfamiliar part of the country. As we arrived at the front door, we could hear the sounds of conversation mixed with laughter inside, along with the delicious aroma of cooking pizza tantalizing our taste buds. Another couple our age greeted us warmly while handing us an apron, sending us toward a buzzing kitchen to begin creating our “couple pizza” for the pizza bake-off contest! Wow! It was a Texas size welcome.
Read More“Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.’”
—John 12:23
Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection were the fulfillment of multiple Old Testament prophecies, and they coincided with a time period of unbridled harshness and brutality. Death by crucifixion, as described by Martin Hengel, was “a barbaric form of execution of the utmost cruelty” and as “the supreme Roman penalty.”
Read MoreEvery five years, the CMDA Board of Trustees goes through a cycle of comprehensive strategic planning. This well-thought out process has guided and directed the organization throughout the last 25 years, as it focuses on better meeting the needs of our members and providing ministry to those we serve around the world.
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