View from Stanford

A young medical student at Stanford University stood before the table of RZIM [Ravi Zacharias International Ministries] books and resources beaming. “We don’t see these things very often,” he said, clarifying, “Not books; there’s no shortage of books. I mean Christianity without the hostility.” He proceeded to describe students and friends who deride the possibility of possessing both faith and intellect, medical professors who actually apologize when the language of design inadvertently slips into lectures on the body, and the isolation that comes from trying to stand in the shadows of this increasingly antagonistic majority. When I inquired as to the availability of support from campus ministries or local churches, his response was equally dismal. “There are groups that speak to the emotionality of faith, but academically, there is no one.”

- from Jill Carattini's recent RZIM report from Stanford and Berkeley. How different are things here in Rochester, and what can we do to foster a more open forum in our own academic town square?

A thought experiment

Our perfectly designed US healthcare system

The interregnum between a presidential election and the inauguration is a time of feverish activity, in which the president elect and his staff decide who will help them govern and what they will try to do first. The press and pundits speculate breathlessly on who will be appointed and what they will do first. As I write this, for example, we have just learnt that the new administration’s secretary of health and human services is likely to be a respected former US senator, Tom Daschle. He has written a book about healthcare reform, which is likely to be his assignment when he starts in January.

I’ve been musing about the United States and how perfectly designed our current healthcare system is. Perfectly designed, of course, as every system is, to achieve exactly the results it gets, as quality improvement guru Don Berwick famously said. In its own way, it is really rather remarkable. Here’s a thought experiment to illustrate what I mean.

Click here to read Doug (graduate of Rochester's Family Medicine Program) Kamerow's thought-provoking article about health care disparities in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal.

Be present

Practice presence
Breathe in the squeaky cry of a too-thin infant
dirt blowing off the road in your eyes
the pain of having too little to give

Breathe out flaming bougainvillea
the sun fading behind the hill
magic of medicine on an infected hand

Breathe in poverty and pain and confusion
the ache of tip-toeing on another’s suffering
Breathe out fresh watermelon
Honduran coffee in the morning
a game of duck-duck-goose.

Breathe in the guilt of problems unanswered,
wasted time, a broken world
Breathe out a new friendship and a fresh coat of paint.

Practice presence –
learn to sit still, listen longer, absorb more than you
thought you could - or even wanted to.

Remember your gifts –
be the first one to smile when passing another
expand a few vitamins into hope for a village
try to turn chaos into a dance.
Learn to let go.

Be still. Be present.

Shoulder to Shoulder, Santa Lucia, Honduras

Martha C. Carlough, MD, MPH
U of Rochester Family Medicine (Class of ’92)