Medicine is a universal language

I’m not sure whether I have made it clear in my other writings about Kijabe, but this is a training facility where Kenyans are educated both in medicine and in the Word to go out and fulfill what I have personally felt to be my life’s calling from Luke 9: “to preach the gospel and heal the sick.”  Therefore I have had the privilege of learning from our US equivalent of other fellow residents and trainees. We sit in lecture together, run to the lab together, and look after one another’s patients. I’ve been so thankful for their kindness in taking me under their wing and never complaining over the plethora of daily questions that I have.  I’ve come to consider them my friends in just the few short days I’ve had the chance to get to know them.

 Last night our attending (a hospitalist from California) had them all over for a pizza party. It was so exciting to sit around and hear the banter that we all shared. I realized that medicine is medicine everywhere. There was a common bond amongst us as we commiserated over medicine consults to perform history taking for ortho (sorry for the insult to my surgical friends…you know how it is…), nurses not charting appropriately (again, sorry for the insult to any nursing friends…some of them are very good here, but you know how the chatter goes), and all of the other things that residents laugh about when they are tired and overworked. It was thrilling to me to watch as we sat and laughed all the while a few checking their smart phones and looking at facebook pictures. Even though we live in very different places, our worlds are not so different.

Beyond our common bond of medicine, it has been exciting to share a common thread of the Spirit. To know that we all love the Lord and seek to glorify Him with our work has been both fulfilling and challenging. One of my fellow teammates and I discussed a patient who had passed in the night the other day before rounds. As we stood on the ward, we reiterated what the Lord has been impressing on us about striving for eternity and knowing that our medicine is only a small step in showing someone God’s love rather than being able to reverse the inevitable. After our conversation ended, I looked at her and concluded, “We have just had church this morning!”

I know that many of my fellow residents in the states and I also share the same relationship with the Lord. I wanted to come to Greenville in part because I knew I would be challenged to remember to love on my patient’s with Christ’s compassion there. However, I fear that in my busy rush to get things done, I don’t share this part of my heart with my peers as much as I should. I am challenging myself to continue to share with patients and encourage my fellow workers in the field to bring honor to our Lord as we work for “things unseen.”