There is something fascinating and intriguing to young and old alike about blowing bubbles. To me, seeing those cute bubbles forming from a tiny layer of soap, getting bigger, and flying higher and higher was one of my childhood’s fondest memories.

The bubbles created by these bubble guns are always a joy to watch. But just as they capture our hearts and minds when they form and fly away, they disappoint us when they burst and vanish. Unfortunately, no matter how beautiful they appear, each one will sooner or later burst and dissipate into thin air.

In life, each one of us encounters people who say sweet words, show great smiles and nice deeds. But sooner or later, we discover that many of the words and deeds that appear to be nice are just bubbles. Nothing but bubbles that are empty on the inside. Pretty bubbles made up and blown by someone for us, or created by us to those around us. They look and appear fascinating but as soon as we hold and embrace them, they burst and vanish.

In my many years of practicing Family Medicine, I’ve heard thousand of tales from broken, hurt, depressed, and anxious souls. People like us who embraced with hope and held on tightly to nice words and promises that turned out to be bubbles. Nothing but bubbles, false promises, and disappointments.

Empty Bubbles that hurt

Unlike the fun of seeing soap bubbles bursting as we hold them, false words and deeds that resemble beautiful bubbles hurt. More specifically, fake words and pretend actions of love, kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, value, and commitment damage hearts and minds. They’re like bubbles in the air destined to vanish, and to let our hearts down.

Friend, the long list of medications that I can use for my patients’ depression and anxiety is a marvel of modern medicine. Yet, healing begins when the false bubbles of empty words and promises are replaced with genuine love and hope.

My own journey of faith has brought me to finding in God’s Bible promises and written Word a genuine source of hope and love. A source where God’s beautiful words of love, hope, faith and compassion are like bubbles that never burst or vanish, and that I can finally touch, hold and embrace.

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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I still remember the first time I set foot in my Family Practice residency outpatient clinic in Minnesota. A jubilant Family Medicine resident who wanted to be every doctor, nurse, medical assistant, and office staff’s best friend and colleague.

Consequently, I was elated to be in a caring team whose sole purpose and mission was to deliver great medical care to regularly scheduled patients. One of my team members was a medical assistant in her thirties who roomed patients, checked their vitals, and assisted me to meet their medical needs. We were an awesome team, or that what I thought. I did my best to be very pleasant, friendly, encouraging, and kind every time we worked together.

Shakedown

But alas, all my nostalgic feelings of great camaraderie and teamship came to a standstill. The residency clinic manager summoned me to her office and said that my medical assistant officially complained to her about me. Something about leaving a piece of paper in the wrong work area!

“What? She said that…but why, I don’t understand. We’re supposed to be a team who work together and care for one another. She could’ve told me,” I said barely able to hide my deep disappointment. The imaginary team comradeship I believed to be real turned out to be wishful thinking. I was a naive medical student just turned doctor who envisioned compassion, caring, grace, and unity always prevail among all. I was hurt.

Sensing my dismay, shock, and disappointment, the caring residency clinic manager looked at me with compassion and said, ” Do you have family members who care about you?”. It took me some time to understand the depth and wisdom of her question. Probably, she was able to see my aspiration to be part of a compassionate and caring medical team. A new physician who wanted to face the complex challenges of medical care; diseases and death; united in a team and not divided.

Chasing Compassion

The journey of being a physician starting with medical school, through years of residency, and unto the many years of practice are marred by many undesirable moments where no compassion is found. Moments and experiences where grace, mercy and compassion seem at times to cease.

Whether we’re in medicine or not, the question, ” Do you have family members who care about you?”, rings true to each one of us. We all crave, need, and live our lives chasing compassion. When I’m treated with grace mercy, and compassion, I feel valued, loved and appreciated.

Love is nothing but lust, and fake useless nice and polished words without genuine words and acts of mercy and compassion.

Certainly, we need compassion to pick us up, and keep us going in a life where all of us , doctors, patients, men, women, rich and poor of all races, experience more shakedowns and letdowns than we care to remember.

Finding & Giving Away Compassion

In a dog eat dog world where compassion can be illusive and hard to find even among friends, lovers, and family members, generations before us found their solace in this divine words “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.” Lamentations 3:22 (New King James Version)

Many years after my residency clinic manager asked me, ” Do you have family members who care about you?”, my patients gradually became like family members to care for. Each one of us is that family member meant to care about patients and others in their moments of joy, laughter, failures, tears, and fears. After all, I know how much divine mercy and compassion, and the compassion of many people, have blessed me and changed my life. Our life are forever changed and renewed with compassion.

Finally, I know ( and I’m sure you do too) the hurt and loneliness of being denied compassion, whether in a small residency clinic in Minnesota or elsewhere. But, I also know the dignity, value, and the love felt and experienced when I’m touched by compassion. We all do.

Hence, this is our calling as healers, and human beings; chase after compassion, find it, fully receive it, and freely give it to others.

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According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America ” Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year. “

A while ago, a patient that I’ve treated soon after his return from a tour of duty in Iraq during the peak of the war shared his heightened levels of anxieties with me.

His mind was in a state of war even in the quietness of an exam room in Indiana far away from the battlefields of Baghdad where he experienced the terror of IEDs and the death of few of his army buddies.

To my surprise, his state of worries and anxieties weren’t related to the war zone that he just came from, but to the prospect of not finding a job and the potential financial setbacks in America. He shared that his anxieties about the unknown future awaiting him in the United States were worst than the fear of war and dying in Iraq.

As a Family Physician, I treat a lot of patients who are overwhelmed with their anxieties, and whose minds and hearts are in a constant war against countless fears, worries, and anxieties. Many of us live in an anxiety state worried about when the other shoe will drop, and the feared potential of a financial crisis, a job loss, a rejection, the next email or an unexpected disaster.

We live in a fast paced world that’s overflowing with tension, competition, deception, betrayal, jealousy, and greed. A dog eat dog world where genuine love, grace, and compassion are often hard to find.

Could that be one of the main reasons that 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety? Is that one of the main reasons why hundreds of millions of people globally have anxiety disorders?

Learning When To Stop

The journey of overcoming anxieties and the heightened level of worries in our human minds can take time. Yet, it’s a war that will surely be won with patience, faith, the right thoughts, support and genuine help. And if needed with medications and compassionate professional counseling.

Friends, even as we pursue all of the above in our journey of healing let’s consider and reflect on these words of truth and hopefully transforming thoughts.

Peace, Love, value, security, forgiveness, affirmation and acceptance are God-made and freely given to us by God our maker. Not by a world where love and compassion is scarce but by One Perfect God.

Holiness and perfection is beyond our human abilities. They are offered to us despite our human failures and sins courtesy of God’s perfect love. Not by our imperfect world where hurts and darkness abound.

God’s perfect love drives out our fears

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

1 John 4:18

We all need to let the soft and caring voice of God lead us, and not to be led by the voice of our fears and anxieties.

Can we hear God’s gentle voice in our loud and noisy world, and in life’s challenges?

Let’s just do our part well, and do the best that we humanly can do, Then let’s stop and have faith that God can and will do his supernatural and miraculous part to change our circumstances, open doors of opportunities, and lead us to what is right and best for us.

God help us all to learn the Art Of Stopping and waiting. To learn when to stop, and to let God take over.

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31

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You see it everywhere. And not just in race relationship and acts of prejudice.

Even our relationships are marred in Spontaneous Automatic Biases that have been deeply ingrained in us from early childhood. Life experiences, parents, families, friends, culture, Hollywood, and the media all contribute to them.

With Hollywood, the media, and fashion industries setting the standards for  what is  culturally unappealing and what is attractive ( confident, wealthy, debonair, brash, smart, famous, passionate, tall, and very handsome men, and young, beautiful, attractive, fit, fashionable,  blonde, and slim figure women,) one often sees men and women entangled in a web of biases that embroil one against the other. We are all burdened by such biased standards for beauty and appeal that only few of us can meet. The end result is many will experience the disappointment, discouragement, hurt and the unfairness of being biased against.  

Spontaneous Automatic Biases (SAB) lead us to belittle and reduce our own value and that of others. It leads those who are prisoners of its evil grasp into a path of unfairly and immaturely accusing, persecuting, judging, and sentencing others before the benefit of a fair hearing.

SAB makes us view others (and at times even ourselves) instantaneously as guilty until proven innocent instead of innocent until proven guilty.

How many of us likes to be viewed as inferior, damaged goods, old and useless, lazy, fool, idiot and an imbecile until proven otherwise. Yet, this is how spontaneous automatic biases make us view others, and even ourselves, causing havoc and much damage to those on the receiving end.

Unfair biases hurt, demean, lessen, and can potentially destroy those subjected to them.

They can snuff off a young child’s dreams to be all what God created her or him to be.

They can shake the sense of value and worth in the hearts of both young and old.

SAB send an ominous sign and unloving message to its recipients declaring that the inner character, high moral standards, good hard work and discipline, and inherent God-given value of each and everyone is of no significance or worth.

Friends, changing our biases and our SAB can’t happen by reading more books, listening to more lectures, or even memorizing Biblical verses. Such a seismic change can only occur when we admit our biases to ourselves, invite God to dwell in us, and ask for His forgiveness for the wrongs that our biases have caused. Our hearts must begin to change starting with those erroneous thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and others. So, help us God.

Here are the thoughts and beliefs that must change, and be replaced by what’s right, true and excellent:

Thinking of ourselves (or of others) as better, greater, higher, and more valuable than others because of our race, color, wealth, degrees, looks, position, name or fame. God truly resists the proud, and pride comes before the fall as the Bible warns us.

Thinking of others ( or of ourselves) as less, inferior, of no value, unworthy, lazy, easy, dumb or insignificant because of their race, color, culture, looks, appearance, sex, handicap, religion, choices, life views, or age. God loves us all, and He offers forgiveness through Jesus Christ to everyone regardless of color, race, looks, or wealth as the Bible tells us.

Today, we live in a world littered with the toxic effects of biases and prejudices. Many are hurt, and as the saying goes “Hurting people, hurt people.” I’m guided today by two Biblical verse that steady my response and calm my soul when I’m subjected to the flaming arrows of SAB.  I hope that you too will find solace in these two verses.

Do not say, “I’ll pay you back for this wrong!” Wait for the LORD, and he will avenge you.

Proverb 20:22

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21

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There was a time in my life, during my adolescence, when I didn’t have a clue as what to do, and what my purpose and mission in life was supposed to be. All what I was able to figure out was my realization that I have deep inner soul needs that go beyond my physical needs for a secure home, a place to sleep, and food to eat. We will all, sooner or later, come to the discovery of our deep rooted, and mountain high need to be loved, valued, and accepted.

There is no argument that we all have a long list of wants, asks, and needs. And we often confuse our soul’s deep and God-created inner needs with superficial and fleeting hosts of unfulfilling asks, pleasure driven wants, and greedy “needs”.

But in a world so saturated with deception, manipulation, lies, greed, lust, betrayal and anger that continuously affect our thoughts, emotions, and actions, WHAT do we really need?

As I reflect on the needs of my own heart and soul, and those of the thousands of patients that I’ve listened to and treated throughout the years, I feel firmly convinced that WHAT we all desperately need can’t be adequately, permanently, or fully satisfied in what our world offers. Worldly praises and pleasures, riches and relationships can’t fully, certainly, or adequately meet our inner cries of the heart, or heal its deep hurts and wounds. The evil words and deeds, wear and tear, use and abuse that we’re subjected to, or that we subject others to, need a salve of perfect love that isn’t found in this world, or in any of WHAT it offers.

So friend, what does my heart and yours need?

Here’s a list of our deep inner needs that’s worth pondering upon

Forgiveness/Freedom/Faith, Approval, Redemption, Acceptance/Assurance, Hope/Help/Healing, Love, Value, Companionship, Intimacy, and Security/Safety/Strength.

To meet all these vital needs, you and I have to continually decide on WHAT we must seek and have in order to meet our needs. Am I Waiting/Worshiping, Hoping, Acknowledging, and Trusting (WHAT) in people, relationships, success and whatever looks and sound believable?

Or, am I Waiting/Worshiping, Hoping, Acknowledging, and Trusting God to meet all the deep inner needs of my soul. I believe, it’s through having faith in the truth of God’s Word that my soul encounters His perfect Love which is The Ultimate Unconditional Love that meets all of my inner longings and needs.

Thank God for the unselfish love, help, and support that we’ve all received in one way or another from many wonderful people in our lives. Such people are true blessings and are like light in the darkness of the many negative life’s experiences that we’ve all encountered. The truth is no matter how loving and supportive anyone in our lives is, the ultimate source and giver of love and all blessings is God. We’re only resources, much like tiny branches of a tall red forest tree, and not The Source of love and Life the Almighty God.

Our human tendency is to make an idol to worship of anything, and anyone whom we assume could fulfill and meet our inner needs, comfort, and soothe our wounds. But this will make us sooner or later worshipers of people and things who hope in vain to find perfect love where none is found causing us more harm and soul injury.

So, WHAT is the Source of love and life that will meet all my needs and heal my soul? Who is the Source that will meet all your heart’s needs?

Friends, the answer to these questions will either make us or break us. We must choose wisely if we are to find the ultimate Source of our Forgiveness/Freedom/Faith, Approval, Redemption, Acceptance/Assurance, Hope/Help/Healing, Love, Value, Companionship, Intimacy, and Security/Strength.

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

Psalm 23:1 (NIV)

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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Friends, we live in a world jam-packed with lies and awash in the darkness of deception.

We’re all engulfed, immersed, and surrounded by dark oceans of lies. I’m not just talking about a deceptive used car salesman (apologies to those who sell cars. Not all of them are bad) who wants to sell you a lemon or a clunker car with a life span of few days. Lies and deception is what we see, hear, and experience throughout our earthly life span.

Everywhere around us, we see, hear and experience deception and lies. Some of these lies are so cleverly diluted with a 1 to 99% truth that make them believable and trustworthy. It’s in the news, in special interest groups with specific agendas, in social media, and in words and actions we hear and experience from friends or foes. It’s in you and me if we choose to lie and deceive others to satisfy our pleasures or to accomplish some selfish goals.

Even those whose name, integrity, and trustworthiness seem to be ironclad can be wrong, mistaken, deceived and can lead others astray much like a blind leading the blind. In medical school, I’ve often heard this well-known statement attributed to the father of evidence-based medicine Dr. David Sackett:

“Half of what you’ll learn in medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out of date within five years of your graduation; the trouble is that nobody can tell you which half–so the most important thing to learn is how to learn on your own.”

Dr. C.Sidney Burwell who was Dean of Harvard University’s Faculty of Medicine 1935- 1949 once addressed Harvard medical students with these words

“Half of what we are going to teach you is wrong, and half of it is right. Our problem is that we don’t know which half is which.” Harvard Medical School’s website at https://hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/facts-figures/past-deans-faculty-medicine

Both of these men realized our human limitations to being infallible, right, truthful and accurate. In my nearly two decades of practicing medicine I’ve seen the truth of their statements again and again. Estrogen and opioids, among many other examples, that physicians were routinely bombarded with news of their safety and benefits, and practically faulted and shamed for not prescribing to their patients( with medical “research” by certain groups and entities to justify their frequent use) turned up to be one of those “half of what we are going to teach you is wrong”. Estrogen taunted by scientific minds and clinicians as great for the heart caused enough heart attacks and strokes to strongly discourage its long term use, and opioids ( including prescription and illicit opioids) killed more than 399,000 people from 1999-2017 ( Scholl L, Seth P, Kariisa M, Wilson N, Baldwin G. Drug and Opioid-Involved Overdose Deaths – United States, 2013-2017. WR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. ePub: 21 December 2018). Someone got much richer with misinformation and deceptive words that misled physicians and patients alike.

Do you wonder what medical information and choices are currently being marketed to us by few entities as right, accurate , and truthful only to be shunned and discredited years later? The art and science of medicine is a blessing and saves many lives but scientific claims that are purposely driven by greed, half- truths, deception, alternative motives, and false information kills and destroys many lives including 399,000 young lives, and counting, who died from overdose.

Truly, deception steals your peace, kills, and destroys. I wonder, how many of us are buried under a load of lies, deception and faulty thinking about our value, worth, and significance? How many of us believe lies, half-truths, and deceiving thoughts about ourselves or others because someone that appears learned, smart, trustworthy, and nice said it.

Is what you heard yesterday, hearing today, and will hear tomorrow about you from others 100% true? Are those negative thoughts you and I have about ourselves, others, and about our future 100% true?

Friends, let’s be wise. Human words, thoughts and the evaluation of others (and our own negative thoughts and views of ourselves) are mostly subjective and can be based on wounded feelings, biases, prejudice, turbulent emotions, greed, lust, jealousy, anger, ambition or pride.

Put what you hear including new scientific claims under the microscope. We must be critical thinkers who take the mean and negative words and thoughts targeted at us by others, and those we inflict on others with a grain of salt.

A lie and a deceptive word can only hurt us and destroy our lives if we believe it and embrace it as the truth.

In this dark world of overflowing lies and deception, I’ve decided to seek and pursue the truth of God who declares me valuable, worthy, and significant. You and I are declared by God in the Bible as worthy of love, forgiveness, acceptance, and redemption. And that’s The Truth that we can fully embrace, find hope in, and that will bring light to every heart overburdened by the evil darkness of lies and deception.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:32 (NIV)

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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Friends, is there an end to greed?

Greed is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed motivated by naked ambition and greed.”

I believe, greed is a dark and evil force that will stop at nothing to get by any means necessary more power, more control, more position, status, pleasure, possessions, or money.

Is this force controlling my life or yours?

Well, help us Lord lest we choose to let this evil force dwell in our souls transforming our lives and those closest to us into misery and spiritual poverty.

I ‘ve seen through my many years of practicing medicine the transformation of medicine from predominantly a compassionate ministry of healing ran by dedicated physicians and their like-minded staff into a business ran by for-profit entities and health systems with the primary objective of making a lot of money.

Knowing how to operate a medical institution or practice in a healthy business fashion in order to have reasonable profits to keep its doors open is about knowing the Business of Medicine. This is reasonable, wise and appropriate. But conducting Medicine (medical institutions and practices) primarily and aggressively as a business that is structured to maximize profits stinks like a dead fish, and is not good for physicians, medical staff, or patients.  That’s the definition of greed that we find in Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

I once talked to a nurse practitioner who shared with me that she has decided to quit her Nursing Home job after the administrators began to discourage, taunt, and admonish her for ordering urine tests for Alzheimer’s patients to evaluate mental status changes, to maintain a patient on long term antibiotic treatment when clearly needed (because of the additional cost to the nursing home), and sending patients to a hospital for hospitalization as that will decrease reimbursement to the facility. To her credit this caring nurse practitioner decided to quit rather than compromise her ethical standards for more profits to shareholders.

“It’s all about the money. How much more money do you need to live? You can’t take it to the grave, you know. People don’t care what you have or what you drive….at least I don’t care,” she said reflecting on that disturbing chapter of her medical career.

“Well, I guess some care just enough to take away your car, money, and then leave you, “I answered. “For me, I find contentment in my Christian faith”

She nodded in agreement smiling as she reflected on how some of her nurse practitioners’ friends are already suffering burnout from the increasing number of patients to be seen daily, and the constant pressure of being forced to choose between ethical medical practice and more profits.

What about us friends? Whatever profession or career choices each one of us chooses, the trap and dark pitfall of greed without limits will snare us if we don’t learn the wisdom found in a life of contentment.

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of any other organization or entity. Information in this blog are not meant to be medical advice. Please see your medical provider or psychologist for any of your medical or psychological concerns.

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As a family physician who has been in medical practice in America for nearly twenty two years, I can’t help but wonder about how medicine has drastically changed in the last two decades since I finished residency and started my medical practice. The best way I can describe how medicine used to be like when I first started private medical practice in the late nineties, and how it is now is with the word coup d’état. Medical practice in general has undergone multiple revolutionary changes that remind me of the many sudden and unsettling coup d’états that I’ve experienced as a child growing up in Northeast Africa.

I still recall during my early childhood days in Africa how each coup d’état brought drastic changes in the fabric of our society and led to many unwelcome consequences. And depending on which group initiated the coup, properties were confiscated, harsher and stricter religious laws were legislated, and new limitations on rights and freedoms were instituted. First, changes were made here and there by a new regime, then new limitations and restrictions by the leaders of the coups that followed were placed and enforced.

I can’t help but see some resemblance between those coup d’états that I’ve experienced during my childhood and the new revolutionary changes that occurred to the practice of medicine in America today. There are multiple new changes, limitations, restrictions and roles that physicians are now expected to follow. There’s definitely a new non-physician sheriff in town, and physicians who once used their power and talents for the most part to do good are no longer in charge. And that’s the new reality of medical practice in America.

There is no doubt that the scientific and technological advances in medicine, fueled by research and brilliant scientific minds have made America the world’s leader in medical advancement. And this is truly a blessing not only for Americans but for the whole world that benefits greatly from America’s medical technology and know-how.

It seems that the coup d’états that have befallen the practice of medicine in America and pauses a  great threat to the amazing wealth of medical knowledge in the U.S. is the gradual transformation of medicine from Patient-Care centered model into a hugely profitable business enterprise. I saw in my many years of medical practice the gradual infusion of business managers and business savvy, intelligent administrators who have skillfully transformed medical care into an extremely profitable business.

For many generations in America, medical care has always been demanding and consuming but yet prestigious, independent, honorable, and rewarding to physicians. I recall the trend of how aggressively large non-profit hospitals and newly formed health systems gradually began to buy independent physicians practices.  I’ve seen how dramatically that has changed the landscape of medical care as the strongly independent physicians whose main concern was their patients became contracted employees of big businesses with a main goal of maximizing profits and minimizing expenses.

Enterprising business minds whose primary interest is to make money from patient care (including a supermarket manager that I knew about who was hired by a business company that owns a chain of independent medical clinics to manage all the physicians and clinic operations) were now deciding on how physicians ought to deliver medical care. Revolutionary profit generating changes, akin to a coup d’état, such as increasing the number of patients per hour physicians must see, reducing and replacing higher paid physicians and registered nurses with less costly medical providers, and instituting complex  and costly Electronic Medical Records (EMR) became the new norm.

According to The Guardian in an article dated March 13, 2018

“The United States spends twice as much on healthcare as 10 other high-income nations, driven by the high price of everything from prescription drugs to doctors’ salaries, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds.”

“The US also spends more on administrative costs. Other nations spend between 1%-3% to administer their health plans. Administrative costs are 8% of total health spending in the US.
This results in US health costs that, as a percentage of gross domestic product, are nearly double that of other nations. In 2016, the US spent 17.8% of GDP, compared to 9.6%-12.4% in other countries.
At the same time, America often had the worst population health outcomes, and worst overall health coverage. The US ranked last in life expectancy; had the worst maternal mortality rates (nearly triple that of the United Kingdom); more infant deaths than any other country, and a high rate of low birth weight babies.”

There is no doubt that few are profiting a lot from healthcare in America, but primary care physicians with their mounting medical school loans (a medical student graduates with an average debt of $170 to 180,000 according to the US News), work hours that can be up to 80 hrs a week for some, and a mountain of administrative burdens are definitely not one of them.

All the seismic changes in medicine has not been without serious and deadly consequences. According to a 2018 Medscape survey the rate of physicians burnout (variation is found between specialties) is at 42%, and up to 14 % are reporting both depression and burnout.

 Medscape Family Medicine also reports in an article dated May 07, 2018:

“With one completed suicide every day, US physicians have the highest suicide rate of any profession… more than twice that of the general population” and adds “ A systematic literature review of physician suicide shows that the suicide rate among physicians is 28 to 40 per 100,000, more than double that in the general population.”

So indeed, the state of medical knowledge in America is excellent but the current state of the practice of medicine after a series of coup d’états is not as good. Sadly, often times it’s becoming mentally unhealthy, dangerous, and at times deadly to many great physicians.

Please reach out to friends and loved ones and seek the advise of a mental health professional if you experience distress or suicidal thoughts.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline ( 1-800-273-8255 https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ can be reached 24/7 and offers “… free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.”

Adel G. Hanna, M.D.

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Cattle Herding Vs Patient Care

By now it’s clear to us that our mighty and rich health system is lacking, and its priorities are primarily financial and profit oriented. It’s only in our imperfect World where ‘time is money’, that we can hear of a statement like “we herd them like cattle (i.e. speeding the patients in and out of exam rooms) but we don’t treat them like one,” said by a physician working in a busy primary care office to one of his office employees. The office employee who eventually left to work in a different hospital system lamented the predicament of the physician that she once worked with, and the state of the health system that transformed sick and hurting patients into cattle to be herded.

How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.

Joel 1:18

In today’s health system, patients with wealth who can afford concierge form of medicine, and the fortunate ones who work in successful and well-to-do companies that emphasize wellness, or in higher education institutions that value their students and employees, can still find quality medical and mental care. The above are examples of how medical care ought to be, not just for few fortunate ones but for everyone. It’s the way all physicians and medical providers would yearn to take care of patients.

The rest unfortunately will have to experience varying quality of medical care. Some of us have good health insurances that provide reasonable compensated time with our physicians, useful diagnostic tests, good preventive care and wellness, while others have insurances that provide minimum time, and less tests, health, and wellness. But in general, most of us, the common man including many of the well to do, receive what the health system wants to gives; fast food style of medicine that’s overwhelming to physicians, medical providers, and patients alike.

This speedy, fast food style of medical care is totally ill equipped to deal with the epidemic of mental illness sweeping the nation with the horrific consequences of mass killings, domestic and national violence, broken family units, and addictions. Our large, rich, and profitable- to-few American health system can’t heal the minds and hearts of men, women, soldiers and veterans lost in the dark tunnels of PTSD. The inner turmoil and darkness of a broken heart menaced by PTSD can’t be quietened and its dark cloud can’t be lifted when it’s is herded like cattle.

And so, in our imperfect world where many view money as more important than souls how can the average man, woman, soldier, veteran, boy, and girl ever find physical rebooting, emotional recharging, and healing of their souls?

The answer does not lie in more wealth, success, or power. But is found in the simple things of life that are free to all; hope, faith and love. When we place our hope and faith in God, and begin to embrace His love, our life time journey of rebooting, recharging, and healing begins.

Join me in a rebooting journey of our body, mind, and spirit as I explore in this website a multitude of emotions and challenges that we all face in life. 

Advice and recommendations offered here are not meant to replace your medical provider’s individual evaluation, diagnosis and treatment. Please see your medical provider for any physical or emotional concerns.

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of  any other organization or entity.

Adel G. Hanna, M.D,

Author: Soldier To Soldier Heart to Heart

A Doctor’s Stories from a Military Camp

  Find

Soldier to Soldier, Heart to Heart, Second Edition

And the ebook version of the book

at Amazon, and at Barnes and Noble

Buy Now from Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble

Buy Now from Amazon

Amazon

 Visit My Amazon Page at

Amazon Author Page

The post Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual rebooting appeared first on Alpha & Omega Healing Arts Dr. Hanna.

” People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Theodore Roosevelt

You might’ve heard the above oft mentioned phrase. Teachers, parents, married couples, doctors, and frankly everyone, would greatly benefit from the deeper meaning of

” People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Putting it in plain English : How much you might know as a doctor, a financial analyst, a teacher , a priest or a pastor would only be of small and limited benefit to others if you don’t genuinely show that you care. And the one definite way that you and I can show someone that we care is by the giving of our most valued and precious God-given gift: the gift of Time.

More than our material gifts or money, including those yearly precious presents on Christmas Day, birthdays, or anniversaries, or even nice words and smiles, we humans crave and need devoted and undivided time and attention. This is because the giving of our most precious resource; time, assures others that we care and that they are loved. It’s only then that someone begins to listen to us, and care about what you and I know, and what we say.

In our busy schedules and daily quest to make a living and meet our God-given human needs, we find ourselves living life in a hurry, and giving less and less of our precious gift of time to others. We’re all pressed for time and in need of God’s wisdom of where, when, and with whom do we share this limited and scare commodity of time. 

With so many things and needs vowing for our attention, we’re all at a loss as to how to divide our time without feeling guilty about not spending enough time to play with our young ones, to listen to a distressed heart, to be there when a loved one needs us, or to pray with someone who desperately needs a prayer. We are in desperate need for wisdom to make sense of what to do with our limited resource of time.

In our pursuit of such wisdom, and as we begin to gradually gain it, we find that there are many time wasting life endeavors, experiences and activities that we pursued before, or are pursuing now. I’m talking about those without any redeeming value, are not helpful, and of no long term benefit or eternal value to ourselves or to others. You and I can count many such waste- of- time life experiences that just wasted away our limited God-given allotment of time and energy.

But, here are some examples of time well spent, and moments in life that are worthwhile: Spending time and being available to others to listen, to laugh, to pray, and time to help someone in need. Giving of our energy and time to our creator God’s higher call of love, obedience, reverence, and showing kindness and compassion to loved ones, family, friends, and strangers is never a waste.

We become healthier, and richer emotionally and spiritually when we give. These are not my words but a spiritual principal that has been said thousands of years ago.

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in, this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus. how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”

Acts 20:35 (ESV)

But finding time to
demonstrate the kind, caring and compassionate acts of love
is getting harder and harder in our individual lives and in the arena of medical care.

Time is money is what we our modernized culture tell us. The bulk of our limited earthly life span/time is not only spent making money and trying to expand on what we already have, but is also hurriedly spent trying to gain and acquire more things. More control, power, pleasures, possessions, satisfaction, and more relationships that never seem to fulfill and satisfy our inner thirst. Our inner hurts, loneliness, worries, fears, shame and guilt can’t be healed “in a hurry”, nor can our healers; physicians, pastors, medical providers, or the health system heal us with a rushed and hurried up attitudes.

For just like a wound needs time to heal, you, and I, every patient, soldier and veteran’s soul, mind, and spirit will need time to heal. Healing of our inner brokenness need time. Our health system with all its medical providers and top notch facilities, and capabilities will not offer long term benefit without the old fashioned gold standard of excellent medical care of spending ample time with each patient.

There is no lasting healing that can be accomplished without the art of unhurried listening, not only to a patient’s words but even more importantly to his and her cries of the heart, and their souls’ deep rooted anguish, sadness, depression, and fears.

Taking time to listen and time to educate, and to offer nonjudgmental preventive teaching and instructions convey kindness, grace, mercy, and compassion: Love displayed in words and action.

But given the emphasis of America’s health system to make, save, and be a profitable model, all while adding more and more lives to be cared for, how can ample time be spent with each patient without the medical industry’s drop in profitability?

And without time to listen, educate, and instruct, how can the great healing foundation of love; mercy, grace, kindness and compassion be passed on to soldiers, veterans, and our nation’s patients’?

If the price paid for lavish profits, inflated salaries, and wasteful buildings, advertisements, management structure, and programs in America’s various health systems is the reduction of medical staff and providers thus overworking those remaining to exhaustion, would that be fair?

If the price paid  for the above financial gains means having less and less time allowed between medical providers and patients to listen without a hurry, and to support and educate would that be a just one?

Advice and recommendations offered here are not meant to replace your medical provider’s individual evaluation, diagnosis and treatment. Please see your medical provider for any physical or emotional concerns.

Views expressed here are only of the author, and do not represent the views of  any other organization or entity.

Adel G. Hanna, M.D,

Author: Soldier To Soldier Heart to Heart

A Doctor’s Stories from a Military Camp

Blog: www.adelhanna.com

 Find

Soldier to Soldier, Heart to Heart, Second Edition

And the ebook version of the book

at Amazon, and at Barnes and Noble

Buy Now from Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble

Buy Now from Amazon

Amazon

 Visit My Amazon Page at

Amazon Author Page

The post The Golden Rule in Medical practice: Part Seven appeared first on Alpha & Omega Healing Arts Dr. Hanna.