[00:00:08] Speaker A: You're listening to faith in healthcare, the cmda matters podcast. Here's your host, Dr. Mike chubb.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Welcome, friends, to Faith in Healthcare. This episode is going to be a little different and one that I've been looking forward to for some time now.
I'm joined by my Regular co host, Dr. Brick Lance, for a special Q and A. We're responding to real questions from Christian healthcare professionals coming through our advocacy and ethics work, as well as an ongoing dialogue on the Point of Medicine blog.
We're going to talk through real world scenarios that Christian healthcare professionals are facing right now, from conscience protections and complex clinical decisions, and to mentoring, grief, identity and praying with patients, with a focus on speaking truth compassionately and caring well for every person that we serve. So let's dive in.
Well, I want to welcome you today to Faith and Healthcare, to our very first ever question and answer session. And I've invited Dr. Brick Lance to join me today. We've been talking for months, haven't we, Brick, about something like this, to talk about questions that we get.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Well, Mike, you and I dialogue a lot on different questions that come into cmda, and we're gonna make this more formal, if you will, and let our audience listen in on our discussions.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: And to press home to me how important this is. Just in the last few days, I've received some questions that we're gonna get to at least one of those today.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: We get an abundance of questions here at cmda, of course, with our advocacy team. We get them in the ethics hotline. And then also we have the Point of Medicine dialogue that goes on our website. But, yeah, we get an abundance of questions.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Well, we're going to cover a broad spectrum of questions. But the place I wanted to start is you just flew in last night from Oregon, and we're attending a conference that's been going on, what, 25 years?
[00:02:15] Speaker C: 42 years.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: 42 years in Cannon Beach. Our Northwest conference that's been organized by our veteran, Mike McLaughlin, and you told me that this weekend you had a fantastic speaker, Katie Faust, and you had some Q and A going on there at the conference.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: I will tell you, it was very enjoyable for me to have Katie Foust there. And this also happened last year. Last year we had Farr Kurlin, and both these folks, both Farr and then Katie are masters at facilitating question and answer sessions. So we had 220 attendees. Of that were 62 students.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: And within the session, the room was packed, you know, 220.
But I think the most delightful part is after their Talk after their lecture is plenty of time for Q and A. And the questions covered the map.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Give us an example.
[00:03:06] Speaker C: Okay, I'll give you a couple examples. And if people don't know, Katie Faust, she runs an organization called Them Before Us, and she's all about the rights of children. Her care really is emphasizing children, both in healthcare, public policy, and all those situations.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: And basically adults should behave like adults and put children first.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: Yeah, and that's the title of our organization. Them mean Children Before Us Adults. And so there were numerous questions because all of her. Her talks were very different every time. She gave three different talks, and the questions were abundant. But I'll just give you a couple examples. So she was talking about assisted reproductive technology in general, and the idea of the snowflake babies, you know, adopting an embryo came up.
And I thought she answered it eloquently, but her answer is also very long.
She's very intellectual, and I thought her answer was very good in the sense that basically adoption is fixing something broken versus using assisted reproductive technology for the adult's purpose.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Is adult focused to launch something broken from the beginning?
[00:04:12] Speaker C: To launch something broken and create something broken. And that's why we have so many frozen embryos.
You know, we lose more embryos through assisted reproductive technology than we do in abortion in the United States. But the question then focused on adopting the snowflake babies. And I have met some folks that have adopted them from the National Embryo Donation Center.
Her answer was nuanced. That even in the field of adoption, and she used to work for the largest adoption agency for Chinese children coming to America being adopted. And often even in the adoption world, even though it is fixing something broken, the focus is on the adult rather than the child.
So the same thing, we need to focus on the child, not the adult.
So there is some overlap between adoption and then creating life. And we have these frozen embryos. We still need to work on the idea that we need to cherish children and not freeze them, basically. So there is this sliver in between, this overlap between what we've done not so well and then adopting. But she had a very nuanced answer. Yes, it is restoring what is good, you know, saving these babies lives. But let's also work on the front end as well. So that's one question. The other is she is a big believer in speaking the truth in love, that we need to do those together, which is not easy. And of course, Ephesians 4:15, we can read that we're supposed to speak the truth in love.
So one of the students actually asked, but I have a lesbian couple next door that have. I don't know if it's an IVF baby or adopted, but they have a child at home. And how do I speak truth to them and love them at the same time? Of course, she quoted Rosaria Butterfield a little bit, but.
And of interest, I spoke up after her answer, and I asked for a show of hands. How many in the audience find that it is a struggle or difficult to do both to speak truth and to love at the same time? And I will tell you, 100% of the hands went up. So this is universal throughout healthcare.
But her answer is, you find every opportunity to love that couple and that child. Every opportunity you can, I don't know, bringing food over, playing games, whatever, but you don't waver on the truth.
You just can't.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Well, doesn't it go along with the idea that people aren't going to care about how much you know until they know how much you care for them in advance? And then it opens the door for expressing truth?
[00:06:37] Speaker C: It does open the door for expressing truth, yeah.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Well, let's.
Was that the only question or do.
[00:06:44] Speaker C: You have a. Oh, no, I could go on and on. There were so many questions. And she did a wonderful job of open dialogue and discussion with those, both for the students and us older attendees.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Why don't you launch us with one of these questions that we've been asked?
[00:06:55] Speaker C: Okay, so we do get questions from the ethics hotline. And so there's a couple of. Here, let me read them. I'm a third year medical student starting my OB GYN rotation, and in the initial intake form, I'm not informed that this rotation will expose me to abortive surgeries and so called gender affirming care.
I will not be participating in these procedures, writing about them, watching them, suturing, et cetera. So what federal and state rights do I have to refuse participation in this procedure based on conscientious objection? Now, let me add into that we get quite a few. And I've actually walked several people through this in training here this past year. Let me just read another one. Because it's not just medical students.
I'm a staff nurse at an inpatient facility. I feel conflicted. My faith about administering cross gender hormones for transgender patients. I still want to continue providing compassionate care to all patients, including transgender patients. So again, asking for advice in that situation as well. But we do have some protection as CMDA members, do we not, Mike?
[00:08:04] Speaker B: We do. And with Beckett Law's Help. My first month at CMDA in 2016, we began a process that took six years, but finally it is circuit court and the government did not go any further. So it's a final decision that our members, or members to be of the future are protected by federal court decision from being pushed by the federal government or any influence the federal government has on institutions. States from being forced. Forced to participate in anything related to transgender treatments, so called treatments or procedures or drugs. So our members can push back, understanding that that's federal law, and there may be state or local or institutional policies that may intervene. The question makes me think of Brick. The one time, I mean, I'm not an OB and I'm certainly not a pediatrician to face some of these issues with the terrible transgender tornado that has passed through the West. But I do remember when I was a medical student, a fourth year student or third year student on elective, on a urology rotation, short rotation, two weeks. I was doing really well in medical school. It was a clinical rotation. And the resident, the chief resident said, hey, Mike, I know you want to go into surgery. We've got a case over at the city hospital. We've got one of these sex change operations.
And I kind of gulped and I thought about it. I came back to him an hour later and I said, you know, doctor, so and so I'll read during that time. I want to understand what's going to happen, but I'd rather not participate in this procedure. And he kind of looked surprised at me and then said, kind of like, okay, walked away. My evaluation came out a week later, and he accused me of being lazy, of not wanting to participate in the normal workings of the service.
And that's my. It's mild. It's not really persecution per se, but I did. There were some consequences, Brick, to my choice not to participate in a, at that time, sex change operation, you know.
[00:10:04] Speaker C: And we, as Christ followers in healthcare, well, even Jesus in the scripture told us that we're going to be hated.
Hated in the name. In his name. Okay? And when we speak his name, we're upholding truth. So you're just upholding truth without even speaking his name. But he is the author of truth, okay? And design. So he designed us. I mean, Genesis 1 and 2.
So I guess we shouldn't be surprised when we stand for truth. And this is where the church needs to be. The church. And what I mean by that is we need to stand together in this. And of course, some specialties will suffer more consequences than others. I, in orthopedics was blessed because there wasn't a lot that I did that would be in these controversial issues. But I need to come alongside my plastic surgeons, my pediatricians, my ob GYN doctors and stand together. I will tell you it's fun at CMDA because we partner, if you will, for lack of a better word, with other organizations who are like minded, like us, like Apolog right now is working.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: The alliance for Pro Life objoins.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Yeah. So they are working on for their residents. It used to be for them required to participate in abortion training and they had to do this.
You know, it's a battle to opt out of it. They're trying to switch that, make it opt in.
So you don't. It's not even part of the curriculum unless you choose to opt in. And obviously residents that want to choose can do that. So that's a big transition. That's a big switch within our culture. Mike, let me just add on to that. And I learned this from the Colson Center. I think it's a good phrase. They call it the theology of being fired. And we've interviewed other people. Alan Josephson, who stood for truth and he was fired. And we don't want anybody to lose their job or lose their license, but we need to stand for truth knowing that there may be consequences. And we need to do it not as a single individual, but as the body of Christ.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: But there is plenty of legislation. I mean, if I remember Weldon, Weldon Amendment, Church, Snow Amendment, several federal laws that are in place. And while I don't understand all the ramifications of those laws, in this particular scenario of a resident or a student, those that want to participate, we do have help from an attorney. Tell our listeners about the help that we've been graciously given.
[00:12:20] Speaker C: Yeah. So if you are in this situation personally and know of someone in this situation, just reach out to
[email protected] and I will help you. We have an attorney who will do free pro bono work for you if you have an issue of conscience violation. And that's funded by the Alliance Defending Freedom. So adf.
So that's just a great relationship we have with ADF as well.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Great.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: And I will add, and these requests do come in. So again, it's a privilege in my position. I've been able to walk some medical students and others in training through this process where they've had to write letters to their dean, have sit in a panel discussion with faculty. And it's not easy. And so we also need to Lift them up in prayer.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I do want to share a very practical example. While neither one of us as an OB GYN have ever had to face this concern, my predecessor here at CMDA, Dr. Gene Rudd, did. And he told me how he dealt with this, that he was not going to participate in abortion. The problem was, by backing out, it put more load on the other residents who would participate.
So first week, first month, he went to the other residents and the program director and said, I will do whatever you ask me to do to cover other areas of the service to relieve the load here if you will allow me to bow out and opt out of doing abortions. And that made him an instant all star for the other residents because he was willing to do whatever it was the scut work for the residents at that point in time. And so he was a team player. He said there was another resident like.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: Him, so he wasn't accused of being lazy like you were accused of.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: True. There was another run of his other residents who also didn't want to participate that wasn't willing to make that step. And that on the other hand, that resident actually was looked down upon by the other residents in the residency because he wasn't willing to do extra work to cover for what he wasn't willing to do.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: And as you know, Mike, and you've seen it, courage is contagious if you make a stand.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Robbie George told us that national convention.
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Yeah. So if you make a stand, it's going to influence our other Christ followers within our realm also to be courageous and make a stand.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Well, let me share another question. And Brick, this is. I am a nurse practitioner and would like advice pertaining to prescribing pre exposure prophylaxis to homosexual patients requesting this medication. I have a sense of conviction that this would be condoning this type of sexual practice. I did attempt to find position statements there at cmda and I didn't find any. I'd appreciate any biblical advice or position on this matter. Brick, take it away.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Okay. Before we answer the question, Mike, this is what's important to discuss.
We, as Christian health care providers, we're going to have differing opinions. And your opinion on this might differ than mine. Okay. And on other issues, but that exists within the realm of health care.
We need dialogue. Okay. We shouldn't just say my ways. I mean, there's some foundational truths that we need to hold fast to, but we should be. Even if we disagree with someone, even if we think their stance is unbiblical, we still need to listen. Okay? We need to be respectful to them and try to even understand their viewpoint. Because if you have a different viewpoint than I espouse my ideas to you, my espousing those ideas probably aren't not have any effect unless I listen to you first and understand why you're thinking the way you think. So just to have dialogue is so important. So even on this question, we may have different healthcare professionals who think differently and it's a difficult question. And we could even expound this into other ideas such as prescribing birth control to non married couples. I mean, there's all kinds of issues about this.
In fact, I think this is in the Bridging the Gap curriculum.
But do we want to prevent the sin or do we want to prevent the consequences of sin?
So again, what I like to quote, and I'll get to answering this question specifically, but in John chapter eight, we have the woman that's caught in some type of sexual sin, adultery, your Bible may say, and of course the crowd disperses after Jesus tells them that they're all sinners and don't want to cast a stone which was legal to stone her to death because of her sin.
And he forgives her, which he does have the right because he is God. But then what does he say? He says, don't go sin anymore. He says, quit it, stop it. Go do what's healthy and right for your own individual human flourishing. In modern medicine today, we need to be very diligent about espousing what is good for that individual, which includes following biblical morality, not for morality's sake, but for their own health's sake. So again, in modern practice with that woman caught in adultery, too many physicians says, okay, I'm going to give you some ideas how to practice safe sex so you don't get pregnant again. Sti and it was interesting. Going back to Canton Beach, Katie Faust had some very specific examples of this where I'll share this story. Her daughter, 15 year old daughter went into the pediatrician and asked the mom, Katie to leave because she wanted to have a private conversation. And so the doctor was asking the 15 year old daughter of Katie, you know, about sexual activity and drugs and et cetera, et cetera. And then the 15 year old daughter responded, this is being trained in Katie's household. Jefferson responded to the doctor, what would you have told me if I answered differently, that I was engaged, what would you have told me? And it caught him so off guard. And the 15 year old said, I hope you would have told me what is good and safe for me.
And that made Mama proud. That made Mama Bear very proud. Yeah.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: So as I've thought about this, there's got to be nuance. You started this, your answer off with, there's going to be different applications of this in this scenario. And certainly what would a pediatrician seeing a 16 year old, a boy or a girl that they've been taking care of for 8, 9, 10 years, who at school has been told that same sex, this sort of behavior, or multiple sexual partners is okay, and they come to you and they've been told they ought to have this prophylaxis?
I think that's a different relationship with a minor, underage minor, versus a 45 year old who's been practicing in same sex relationships for a period of time.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: Yeah. And I agree. And there's different age variants state by state. You know, in Oregon, basically you become an adult at 13 according to state law, and you can prescribe these without any parental notification for the 14, 15, 16 year old. I think this is another area where we, as practicing healthcare professionals, we need to be educated. And what I mean by that is we need to know all the consequences and give accurate, informed consent to our patients if they're going to pursue this. Now, if you have an adult that's an active homosexual, I would have no problem if a Christian healthcare worker doesn't want to prescribe the prophylaxis trying to prevent that disease. But don't do it without having an open, honest discussion with the patient and the consequences and why it's for their own benefit, for their own flourishing.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: I think this individual has challenged us. You're on the ethics committee. Maybe our ethics committee should figure out where does the answer fit into one of our current position statements? Or should we be thinking about supporting our members with a new position statement?
[00:19:58] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's a good question.
There's not a just a what? I guess I'm trying to say there's not just a clear cut yes or no answer to this.
So, Mike, we're going to transition here to questions that we received from the Point of Medicine.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Remind us what the Point of Medicine is all about. Brick.
[00:20:17] Speaker C: So it used to be called the Point Blog, and we changed it last year to the Point of Medicine. And we have articles that are written about all aspects of healthcare in medicine and a variety of different authors. And if someone out there wants to contribute an article to us, we'd love to have it and put it on there. It does get edited, but we always include questions because we want dialogue again. We're having a dialogue because we want our audience to have dialogue on all these issues.
So I brought up some questions that came out from articles on the point of medicine this past year. And Dr. Francis Noutlapati wrote an article back in September called Done Early.
So one of the questions is, what medical wisdom did your mentors pass on to you? And I have some thoughts, Mike.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Yeah, go for it.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: One of my mentors back in my 20s, several things that he taught me is he would say, bring out a character trait that you know, a spiritual character trait that you really want to grow in and just pray that daily for a year and find a prayer partner and pray that with you. And I can remember, I thought that was just wise advice. And I can remember some. I don't want to get too personal on mine, but I was a proud, arrogant, you know, medical student and doctor in my early years, and I.
And getting humility is hard because it has to come from the Holy Spirit. But I did pray, Father, and his answer to my prayer of creating humility, I don't want to go into, but one of his creating trials in my life where I have to trust on God and not myself to give up my control. But you could pick any character trait. But that was one. The other one that was very valuable to me, and let me just be a little personal on this mic is my prayer life.
He said, every night before you go to bed or with your head on the pillow, I want you to give thanks to God. And we're told in 1st Thessalonians 5 to pray for everything and, you know, continuously.
And so at the end of the day to just recount the day, both the good and the bad, the people that we encountered, the situations we encountered, and thanking God about those people, those situations, those conversations at the end of the day, recount your day just giving thanks to God.
That has been very valuable. And so, Mike, I don't want to get too off the track here, but I tell you, when I lost my son 3 1/2 years ago, even the day that I found out, I laid my head in the pillow and gave thanks to God for my son.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Wow, that's wonderful.
[00:22:40] Speaker C: Just because it becomes such a habit.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: In my life, I was thinking through one of many things that mentors shared with me. Brick and I had a chance to practice with Dr. Bob Schindler, a past president of CMDS back in the day, in the 80s when I was a student, later went on to practice with him in Michigan. And we all the time talked about and I observed in his life the Schindler 72 hour rule, which is that if someone really ticks you off or something really frustrates you and makes you very emotionally angry, wait 72 hours before you respond. Now, with the advent of email, it's become really hard to do that. But as opposed to picking up the phone and just getting upset, no matter who it's with, whether it's one of the nurses on the floor, whether it's office manager, administration partner, and there were some times during those three years when I practiced with Dr. Bob Schindler when he was able to say, you didn't wait 72 hours. And he told me, he said, when I was young, I had a mentor Tell me 48. I realized Bob Schindler needs an extra 24 hours.
So he's 72 hours. So that was really helpful to me. No matter what the environment or the practice, the group, whether as a missionary overseas at Timock Hospital, and then also seek first to understand and then be understood, why did they do this? Ask questions. And that has just been a gold mine.
[00:24:05] Speaker C: And that is a problem for surgeons, may be a problem for all of us. But you and I, we want things done well, done right. And if something happens, my tendency is to react very quickly. So I love this. I need to incorporate that in my practice, in my life. It's interesting again, this last weekend with Katie Faust, what she calls in her book that she wrote is the no flinch rule. In other words, someone may say something or do something, you need not to flinch your flinches. You that immediate reaction not only with your children, but your colleagues as well. You need to process it. You need to listen before you espouse something. Yeah, yeah, great, great. And then the other question that Francis asked is, do you view the practice of medicine as a calling or a job?
And has your view changed over time? What do you think on that, Mike?
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Well, I would say my view has never changed, not from the beginning. From when I was 16 or 17 years old, nobody medical in my family.
The only doctor I knew was my own family doctor. But I ran into some missionary medical folks doing mission service. And those were some of the physicians who inspired me and then had an opportunity to go to Sierra Leone, West Africa, as a sophomore at Taylor University.
And while I was there, saw a nurse practicing the most wonderful, compassionate difference making care with a rural tribe in Sierra Leone and her heart for those people, the difference she was making, I just, that's what I wanted to do. And so I remember praying at my bedside all by myself in the bedroom where I was staying and asking God that if he would just allow me to get into medical school, that's what I wanted to do. And so I was inspired. I never, ever, ever thought I've told my kids this over and over again.
I've never worked a day in my life.
I have never worked a day in my life because God called me clearly into this profession. And there have been long days. I don't want to say that I haven't been absolutely overwhelmed with fatigue and exhaustion and haven't had times when I haven't wanted to walk away, frankly.
But it's not ever felt like a job. How about you, Brick?
[00:26:14] Speaker C: Well, I just want to reflect back. The listeners should go back and listen to you and Jeff Barrows interview Dr. David Bonson on his book because he thinks this idea of work life balance is a misnomer. It's the wrong way to look at.
Was almost a year ago that you had that interview with him. And so our occupation is just another part of our life. All right. And so all of our life is a calling by God. Now, my own personal story. At age 17, I had a knee dislocation. My sports career immediately ended because it was in 1976. They didn't know how to fix a knee dislocation when all my ligaments were torn. Emergency surgery. But again, I said to myself, I want to be an orthopedic surgeon. And so I just pursued that route. That's the career, the job that I want.
So mine did change over time. And the more I think about it and the more I grown, hopefully more intimate with God over time and study his word, I realized that he really is not only sovereign over the universe, but he's sovereign over every individual life. He's been sovereign over my life and guided it. He's gifted me the things, the fact that I could even become an orthopedic surgeon. I just give blessing to God. And even to be able to bless other people is a blessing from God. So our whole life again, we may make bad decisions, wrong decisions. We do. But the way I look at it is, if we want to call it a calling, it's part of just trying to be intimate with God and using our life, however he has gifted us. And so my view of that has changed over time.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Before we continue with this week's episode, here's a special announcement for you.
Mark your calendar for the 2026 CMDA National Convention, April 23 through 26 in Loveland, Colorado, a time to renew your spirit, recharge your faith and connect with fellow believers in health care.
We're thrilled to welcome John Stonestreet, president of the Colson center and co host of Breakpoint Radio, a nationally recognized voice on faith, culture, theology and Christian worldview.
Convenient lodging is available at the Embassy Suites by the Hilton Loveland Conference center and Spring Hill Suites by Marriott with special CMDA room rates reserved for attendees.
Learn more or
[email protected] events let's jump right back into this week's episode.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: And we should acknowledge the source of these particular Questions came from Dr. Francis Nuthulapadi, who is the chair of our mentoring and Discipleship Commission.
Dr. Nuthalapadi and that commission have launched a mentoring academy that's in its second year. And I just feel you've heard me say this before, Brick, but I think that every member and ministry partner of this wonderful 95 year old organization must be a mentor. There's just no out. And even though I'm not in clinical practice now, even though I'm not doing rounds, I've made it known out there in Johnson City and other places I'm willing to be a mentor. And so others, campus advisors, have fed students who are interested in what I was, which was medical missions as a career, and sent them my direction.
[00:29:35] Speaker C: Mike, it's a delight that I've had a privilege and then go back and listen to your interview of me. I, I love mentoring, I love being mentored, which was a strong influence in my life. But I love mentoring young people. It's just a joy and a delight. I had 20 undergraduate students, U of O students at Cannon beach this weekend and what again, I couldn't spend a lot of time with all of them.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: And undergrads. What a way to get started, even before graduate school.
[00:29:57] Speaker C: And it is just, it's a blessing in my life to work with these young people. So if any of our listeners say, God, I don't know how to get involved in being a mentor for someone else, reach out to us, reach out to this committee that Francis leads. We'll find you some students that will get you connected. Yeah, absolutely. Hey Michael. So let's go to the next question.
So I put an article shortly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk that was also back in December.
And I don't know how much we want to discuss this, but I wonder what your reaction was to Charlie Kirk's death.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Well, the first response I want to give is to our listeners or viewers is that we have a committee of our board called the Red Racism Reconciliation Equality and diversity. And our current president of cmda, Omari Hodge, was the chair for several years. He's now handed over as he became president to Dr. Angela Johnson, who's an OBGYN in Texas. I had the opportunity to pre listen to a podcast coming out and now has come out as our program is released by four or five members and a guest of that podcast with this very topic. A candid, though respectful conversation surrounding Charlie Kirk and the different perspectives, including perspectives of some minorities, because of some of the things that have come out over the years that Charlie has said. So I do want to encourage our listeners to listen to that. About a one hour conversation between four or five panel members.
I think it's excellent for myself, like a couple of panel members in that discussion really didn't know much about Charlie Kirk before the assassination. And then after the assassination, it was my daughters who had followed him who pointed me and really grieved, even wept. And I know that I've heard from other of our members and friends of CMDA that they've had young people, kids in their lives who also really became very emotional and were in grief over Charlie's loss. I do think there's been a degree of spiritual awakening that's undeniable no matter how people viewed Charlie Kirk and his involvement in politics. I do think it's caused many within the CMDA ministry to ask ourselves and each other, you know, are we involved enough in impacting politics? Matt Maddox, who's actually part of that panel discussion and actually is the head of our physical therapy section, CPRP is what it's called. He himself had really nice contribution in that discussion on the involvement of Christians in politics and that he has been challenged more than ever that it's appropriate for Christ followers to have an influence in politics.
[00:32:39] Speaker C: Yeah. And I will tell you, I do have some folks that I know well that had the attitude of good riddance upon his death, which is to me so sad.
And I would like to make a comment. There was a well known theologian, very respected theologian who did make, I think a very appropriate comment that there's probably never any evangelist, if for lack of a better term that has reached the college age kid, that 18 to 22 year old kid with the gospel message, other than Charlie Kirk, and he's probably right on that. So again, my other thought on this is I have said some things in my life that I've regretted saying and were very inappropriate. And if I had a video recording on me all day long like Charlie Kirk did, there'd be a lot you could replay that would be embarrassing, to say the least.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: You wish wasn't out there and probably.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Wish wasn't out there. Which also brings up another thought that you and I talked about earlier is I don't have a lot of fears, physical fears in my life. One of the things I do fear, in fact, I shared with you. I got chased by a grizzly bear before. I really didn't have any fear at the time because I was trying to protect my daughter. But separate, separate story.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: You're an unusual guy. Hi, Brick. There's no question.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: Separate story. One thing I do fear, though, is failing in my calling to be an ambassador for Christ because I want to.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Do it well and hear well done, my good and faithful son.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: I do want to hear that.
And the greatest thing, though, is God has forgiven me in the times I failed and I have failed and Charlie Kirk failed, okay, and probably multiple times. But at the same time, he did espouse truth, the gospel truth to people that need to hear it and let.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: People who disagreed with him ask lots of questions or comment on his own views.
[00:34:25] Speaker C: Which brings me to two other ideas that I ask questions for what do you pray? In our divisive culture, we need to be men and women of prayer. If we're part of this family that's called cmda, we just need to be devoted to prayer.
It's powerful. It's needed.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: And our board is meeting once a month. You and I are both a part of that. We have a praying board and the House of Representatives and just grateful, grateful for those prayers for cmda. You know, Rick, we did get a set of questions which are especially poignant for you.
What has been helpful for you personally during mourning and what scripture guide you during that mourning or grieving? And for listeners to understand, Brick lost his son Kip. It was now three and a half years now three and a half years ago and has written a book about grief. So we're not going to take a too terribly deep dive here because you and I plan on having a separate conversation about this. But just briefly, since Bob Cranston, one of our friends, sent in this question.
[00:35:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Again, you can find that on the point of medicine. That's also back in September, I did have one pastor immediately after his death give me the book the Valley of Vision, which is Puritan prayers from centuries ago. And they're not that long, but they're just rich and they're deep.
And I think when someone undergoes a tragedy in their life, particularly the Christian, either go further away from God or you go closer to God. I don't think there's an in between. And I just tried to draw upon, draw close to God. And I just was. I spent more time in his word and in prayer anytime I took months off from my practice.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: So scripture, especially that that you had hidden in your heart, as I remember, I had a preview and read your book. That scripture that was already a part of your heart and you had meditated upon many just came back to provide comfort.
[00:36:19] Speaker C: It was interesting. God put in my heart. I said, I want you to know my word. If you want to know me, you need to know my Word. I mean, he really just put that in my heart. And then I would, thanks to Google. But I also have my old concordance. So I looked up clay and there's so many scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament. We are the clay, he is the potter. He can do with my life whatever he wants because he is the master. He's the master. I just need to accept the way he's molding me because that's his prerogative, because he's God. So anyway, I would say scripture and prayer is what got me through that.
So let's go to an article also from Andre Von Mahl. He's kind of our expert in the world of gender and what we call gender dysphoria.
We have a couple questions here, Mike, we ought to discuss and what should we place our identity in rather than placing our identity or someone else's identity in gender or sexual orientation. I've got some thoughts, Mike, do you have some thoughts on that?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Well, first of all, just great resource and to promote our national convention because Dr. Carl Trueman was with us in a webinar that you and I both attended and well over 100 people attended talking about his new book that's coming out the beginning of April called the Desecration of Man and touches on so many issues, topics that are really important for us bioethically at cmda. But his book in the past, the Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self and just how the modern self developed, it's not been a just the last 30 years, it's been centuries in which it's developed the whole concept of embodiment. I think the only people who bring up embodiment are those of us really mostly who believe in creation order and that God created them, male and female, and that we are embodied souls. And so I've been thinking a lot about that with Jeff Barrow as your predecessor. We spent a fair amount of time talking together about what embodiment means. And that very much my identity, it's not exclusively tied into this Mike Chupp body, but it sure has a significant role to play. Your thoughts?
[00:38:21] Speaker C: Well, Mike, and I know you more personally than some others do, but I mean, if you were going to describe yourself, you would describe yourself as a missionary dog because that's where you loved your practice over in Africa.
You would describe yourself as a singer. You and Pam do duets together, which are just lovely and beautiful.
Actively involved with your church. There's a lot of things you would talk about yourself you wouldn't start out with. I'm a heterosexual male and I've been that way for my life. It's just that wouldn't even cross your mind?
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Way down on the list.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: Way down the list. And I just find it disheartening in our culture that that's almost become the primary identifying factor in someone's life is their either their sexual preferences, sexual orientation, or their gender identity. And that is so far off base the way we're created in God. Yes, we are created male and female. And you and I believe that Genesis 1 and 2, that that's the way we were created for a purpose and for a reason, for a specific design, for a plan.
But I find it very strange that in our culture today that people put this sexual issue as their primary identity when there's so much more within our bodies, within our mind, within our heart, our soul that were created by God that we can identify with now. We as Christ followers, we know that our identity should be and is continuing growing to be in Christ.
And we want our Christian health care professional, our colleagues, to do the same. Our identity is in Christ. Now. I can identify as an orthopedic surgeon, you can identify as a general surgeon. But number one, number one factor for identity should be that we're in Christ.
So let me ask the other question about this.
What is the compassionate way to engage another person with a distorted identity? Because this happens more and more for all specialties. I in orthopedics, saw patients that come in, were either in transition or had transition. Even in my orthopedic practice, we had employees that had gone through in transition.
So how do we demonstrate compassion to them?
[00:40:24] Speaker B: I find it interesting that there's this mantra that I've shared a number of times on faith and health care, which I think came from an emergency medicine doctor out in Colorado on a blog they wrote, and I've shared it in several different contexts. But as followers of Christ, as Christians in healthcare, we are willing to take care of anyone, anywhere, anytime. But we have the right to say I'm not willing to do just anything, both as a Christ follower and as a professional, knowing what I know. And so those who would say that we are refusing to care for people, it's just not accurate as I've met our members and I know who our members are, 14,000 plus across the country and other Christ followers in healthcare, that's just not how they view things. I was asked a number of times in my practice in Michigan to do colonoscopy, whether therapeutic or screening on lesbians and gays. I mean, I found out during my time one woman in particular was a lesbian. I didn't treat her different from anybody else. And, and it never really came up in the topic of the conversation. I offered respectfully to ask if she wanted me to pray for her. And I think she actually accepted that I would pray for her. And it never came up. I was able to love her and treat her just like anybody else.
But the idea that we somehow, if we speak truth on issues that we, as Farr Kurland writes, the way of medicine, we know as professionals what is going to lead to flourishing or not.
The idea to me, Brick, that I could not speak the truth and be compassionate at the same time, it was demonstrated there at Canton Beach. You mentioned everyone said I struggle with this. Yeah, we all struggle with it. But I wonder if those who respond to us when we say these things are leading to damage, especially in children and adolescents lives on the whole gender revolution. It's leading to damage long term from their fertility and reproductive ability.
The two have to go hand in hand.
[00:42:22] Speaker C: They do. And I'm going to come back to Farr Kurlin on this topic that you just brought up. Again, we must establish a relationship with our patients. They're not a commodity that we're going to make our living off of and treat them what they desire, what just needs to be done. We need to build relationships. And I think even just in our everyday life, we don't have the right to share truth unless we have a relationship. And I think that is so, so important.
I don't want to use the word pride, but I will use pride. I took pride in my practice of the number of lesbians I had in my practice because, oh, Dr. Lance, not only did he care for me, he cared for my partner and asked him questions and such. And I think that's how we need to be known as Christians. In fact, I would say back in the day, Eugene, Oregon was they had the Highest rate of in vitro fertilization for lesbians anybody in the world, per capita. But did I love and care for them? Absolutely. Did I agree with their lifestyle choices? No. But doesn't mean I'm not going to love them and provide the best care within my ability that I can for them.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: And as an orthopaedic surgeon, you were able, you weren't asked to do procedures on them that conflicted against your conscience.
[00:43:32] Speaker C: Yeah. So. And then let me just put in a plug. So at the national convention in our advocacy workshops, we are going to have a detransitioner. So someone that transitioned to another gender and then transitioned back, particularly after they met the Lord and now speaks boldly for Christ about his design for his body and the mistakes that he made, and then how we as healthcare professionals can help that individual. I think it's gonna be very powerful because we all need to learn. And there's also on the Voice of Advocacy podcast where we interviewed those on the Resilience Health Network, which is, we're trying to create a consortium network of all healthcare professionals throughout the United States, create this network where we can care for those that want to transition back to their biological God given sex. And I find this also interesting, Mike.
I'm hearing more and more stories of people that have come to know Christ when they've gone through this gender rejecting procedures, what we call gender distortion.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Yeah, sex rejecting procedures.
[00:44:34] Speaker C: Sex rejecting. I'm sorry, sex rejecting procedures. Because they realize then that they've desecrated something that was beautiful and that leads them to Christ.
As I tell people, moral beauty can lead people to Christ and the desecration of moral beauty can lead people to Christ. And I think that exists in this world of gender distortion. We need to be aware of that. Not be fearful of speaking the truth, but doing it in love and compassion, caring for those people.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: Well, we're getting close to end of our time. We probably. There's a question that's just come in the last few days that I shared with you earlier today and you said we need to spend some time on this.
[00:45:12] Speaker C: Yeah, we do. I'll put it that way.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Some of you are aware have had a chance to go through some of our modules in our Faith Prescription series. I think we're up to 30 modules. Dr. Bill Griffin has been involved in producing that and we've had a number of topics and so forth. And number seven, I remember it's number seven is the one that I had the privilege of, of actually sharing on, praying with and for our patients. And so this question is about prayer with patients. And the writer is an orthopedic surgeon who submitted this. A number of CMDA resources discuss issues related to praying with patients. I've not seen anything, Dr. Chupp, about praying with patients specifically before major surgery and then have major complications, including intraoperative or perioperative death. As a surgeon, I'm sure you've encountered this. So I wrote back to this orthopedic surgeon and I just said, tell me a little more. What's behind this? And he said, well, of course we get informed consent on all the kinds of things that can happen, potential complications and even death.
When we pray, we ask for God's will to be done and a number of other things. But usually don't pray for the patient not to die or have significant perioperative complications.
When this happens, it is already very difficult to meet with a family. And I have now felt comfortable praying again since then.
[00:46:36] Speaker C: Listen, I can empathize with this Dr. Mike. Boy, I could say so much on this. I will refer to Dr. Levy's book, Gray Matter. And he also gave a couple of faith prescriptions towards the end there. Yes, he did, and actually followed the kind of the template or the advice in his book. When I, decades ago, started praying with my patients, that was very, very helpful because I was very fearful of praying with my patients.
But it is a delight when you can pray with your patients.
But all surgeons, anybody that. Well, anybody who messes heads can have complications.
And I can empathize with this thought. But if there's a complication, I just prayed with this patient for an outcome. Boy, how do I reconcile that?
So several comments.
One is my own attitude in prayer.
So am I praying for this patient? I have to ask myself this question. Am I praying for this patient because I want to be more righteous and.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: Ride in on your white horse.
[00:47:31] Speaker C: Yeah, and ride in on my white horse. Or am I praying for this patient because I really, truly do care for that patient? And I have to answer that question to myself every time.
But it also comes what do I pray for that patient?
1. When I do pray for patients, I pray that they'll be comforted, that they'll have peace. I pray that this trial in their life, because surgery is a trial for all our patients. You know, it becomes routine to us, but it is a trial. But that this trial in their life will help them grow in their faith. If they don't have a faith, they have a faith in Christ or to grow in their faith. And then I Do pray, of course, for the outcome as well. I bless them through this time and some don't have the best optimal outcome and then that's difficult.
So I think this is something we need to dialogue about more in the future. I think this is a big issue for us in Christian healthcare.
How do we pray for patients? Why do we pray for our patients?
What do we do with the difficult patient? So it's not only the bad outcomes, but the difficult angry. Now, we also need to do this respectfully. So if the patient doesn't want prayer, we absolutely respect, doesn't mean we can't.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: In our hearts, don't pray for them. That's the acrostic that I give in module seven. Pray, prepare.
So know what you're facing and the kinds of things that you can share with this patient, but respectfully ask and then yield, yield to whatever the patient says. And you could always pray for a patient. I mean, no one can stop you from praying for a patient.
[00:48:56] Speaker C: Yeah, but I would say for those, again, if there's a surgeon out there that says, I've never had a bad outcome, then they're lying if they've been in practice more than a day or whatever. But you know the old saying, we all have bad outcomes or complications and then we can look at our complications. And I have to answer this to myself too. Was that something technically I did wrong or was that just something that happened? It could be their underlying comorbidities or whatever, that could be an issue. And so we have to wrestle with that. And then you also have to wrestle with the issue. Is the complication solvable or not solvable? Did it lead to a permanent problem or as he alluded to, even death? There's multiple factors here that circle around, circle around in my brain.
But if I still truly care for that patient, care for the family, I still will pray for them. And then if they want prayer with me to pray for them, you know, out loud, corporate prayer, then I'm happy to do that as well. But it's not always easy. So I empathize with this question, Mike. It's been on my heart and I will admit I do find it difficult as well.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: My plan is to reach out to this orthopedic surgeon and pray with him and talk with him and encourage him and to keep it up. It's still important to keep, keep praying with patients and to apply it broadly.
If you only pray with patients when things are dicey or when it's a high risk procedure, I doubt that anyone does that. But that would seem to me to be especially vulnerable to this sort of situation. I think it's good, in a way to offer prayer to all patients. And I did have a chance to actually operate with Dr. David Levy. I did a number of cases with him in Kenya.
And one of the things that residents pointed out to me after he had visited with us, Dr. Chupp, we don't have to pray long prayers. Dr. Levy pointed out that short prayers, because rounds, I mean, rounds will take forever if you pray long prayers with every patient. And so just figuring out a way to incorporate prayer in one way or another, be creative in the way we incorporate prayer.
[00:50:56] Speaker C: And Dr. Levy, you know, he did very high risk procedures.
[00:50:59] Speaker B: Yes, he did. He did great brain aneurysms.
[00:51:01] Speaker C: Brain aneurysms. And through vascular procedures. But let me just share a very short story. So, as you know, I did the Snoopy dance a little while ago because I was in the middle of a lawsuit and ready to go to trial. And it got dismissed the night before the trial. In fact, I'm surprised I'm here right now. So it got dismissed. Now, again, the complication, and I don't want to get individual about the patient themselves, but the complication was due to their underlying rheumatological condition. Now, again, there was a complication, and I can take my responsibility, but there was no bad outcome other than the underlying rheumatological condition. And all the experts had said that as well, and so finally got dismissed after two years. But I still pray for that patient.
Even the ones that are angry at me that think that I harm them, I still want to pray for them.
Wow.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: So, Brick, as we wrap up this Q and A time, I think we should make sure we remind our listeners of the kind of resources that are available to us. Certainly CMDA.org ethics position statements, like 90 of them, on all sorts of issues, touching on some of the things we discussed today. What are the resources would you want to point out?
[00:52:10] Speaker C: Well, you also mentioned this mentoring academy.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:52:13] Speaker C: If you're struggling with being a mentor, sign up. Okay. The advocacy team. Our team's always willing to help. So again, we have a legal hotline. We have, again, the ethics hotline. But you can just reach out to
[email protected] if you have questions, we'll help you respond. If you have a legal issue, our team can walk you through it. But also we can get our attorney involved and you can have a conversation if you're a CMDA member and read.
[00:52:37] Speaker B: And contribute to the point of Medicine.
[00:52:39] Speaker C: Blog that you referred to the Point of Medicine blog. We want to create more dialogue because I just firmly believe that dialogue is so important for the church and for cmda. We need to discuss and talk about these issues, particularly ones where we disagree.
The dialogue may be very short if we're going to agree on some specific topic, but even those that we disagree on, we should have dialogue and listen.
[00:52:59] Speaker B: Well, I want to thank you for joining us today on Faith and Healthcare for this very first Q and a, and Dr. Lance and I will plan on doing this maybe once a quarter down the road.
[00:53:07] Speaker C: Yeah. And if you have questions that you want us to address, send them in. Yeah.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: And we will, in the show notes as well as in the outtake from this, give a place where people can put those questions.
[00:53:20] Speaker C: Excellent. Thanks, Mike.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: Thank you for joining me today, Brick.
[00:53:22] Speaker C: It's been fun.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: Well, thanks for joining us for this Q and A episode of Faith in Healthcare. We're grateful for the thoughtful questions that came in for Brick and me, and we want to keep this conversation going. If you're facing an ethical or advocacy concern, you can find CMDA's ethics resources as well as our position statements by going to cmda.org ethics and you can reach our team by emailing
[email protected] for guidance, including support when conscience rights are at stake.
We also invite you to read or share and contribute to the point of medicine because healthy dialogue matters, especially at times like these. And if you have questions that you'd like us to address in a future Q and A, please send them in and we'll share the link in our show Notes today.
Next time on the podcast, Brick and I will be joined by Dr. Al Mohler, who's president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, for a conversation about how to think through today's cultural and ethical pressures with a biblical worldview in a rapidly changing culture. You know, Dr. Mohler's daily podcast, the Briefing is one that I listen to most days of the week.
Thank you for listening to Faith in Healthcare Today where our mission is to bring the hope and healing of Jesus Christ to the world through committed Christ followers in healthcare. Like so many of you listening today, well, we'll see you next time, Lord willing.
[00:55:16] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Faith in Healthcare, the CMDA Matters podcast. If you would like to suggest a future guest or share a comment with us, please email cmdamatterscmda.org and if you like the podcast, be sure to give us a five star rating and share it on your favorite social media platform.
This podcast has been a production of Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
The opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are not necessarily endorsed by Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
CMDA is a nonpartisan organization that does not endorse political parties or candidates for public office.
The views expressed on this podcast reflect judgments regarding principles and values held by CMDA and its members and are not intended to imply endorsement of any political party or candidate.
