[00:00:08] Speaker A: You're listening to Faith in Healthcare, the CMDA Matters podcast. Here's your host, Dr. Mike Chubb.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Welcome friends, to Faith in Healthcare, where we focus on exploring the issues that that matter most to Christian healthcare professionals. So whether you're in healthcare, married or otherwise connected to someone who is, or you're just simply interested in how God is working right now through Christ followers in patient care and beyond, we're so glad that you joined us today.
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, which means that we're entering a wonderful time of gratitude as well as giving and and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to you, our listeners, our watchers on YouTube, our ministry partners and supporters.
I've been blessed to hear inspiring stories this year over and over again. We have equipped students to stand firm on campuses where their Christian worldview frequently gets met with resistance. We've encouraged residents who are struggling with exhaustion and well, they're looking for long term vision. We've helped individuals learn to share Christ more boldly and provided valuable resources to help empower health care professionals as they navigate today's controversial bioethical and public policy issues with grace and confidence, I think the impact is clear. CMDA is educating, encouraging and equipping Christian healthcare professionals in every phase of their careers, whether standing at the base of the healthcare training mountain, so to speak, or Christians who are looking back over a long and fruitful fulfilling career in answer to God's call, but are still desiring to squeeze every bit of possible meaning and service as an ambassador in God's kingdom before God calls them home. Home.
I sometimes think of CMDA as a faith focused turbocharger, a ministry that empowers and transforms healthcare professionals of faith.
This is why today, friends, I'm asking for your financial support again this year.
Our goal is to raise $1.3 million by December 31st.
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Would you please prayerfully consider making your gift? Even today?
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Thank you for doubling your impact and helping us keep your CMDA strong.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: As.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: We continue sharing stories that inspire and strengthen your faith. This episode is one I think you'll find especially meaningful.
I'm joined today by our CMDA Senior Vice President Dr. Bill Griffin as co host.
And together we get to welcome a longtime friend, Dr. Mark Topazian, who's a world class gastroenterologist who's taught and practiced at Yale University as well as the Mayo Clinic. And he now serves in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia alongside his wife Janet as missionaries with SIM, their sending agency.
Dr. Tapazian's new book, Healing Finding Satisfaction in a Healthcare Career. It takes an honest look at what happens when our calling to help others sometimes collides with exhaustion and suffering and even spiritual fatigue. It asks a question that every healthcare professional eventually faces what actually sustains us when helping people just isn't enough anymore.
I think so highly of Dr. Tapazian's book that I just gave a free copy to all of our House of Representatives that met earlier this month.
Through stories from his years in academic medicine as well as mission service, Dr. Tapazian helps us see how faith and science, they tell a single unified story about healing and how practicing whole person care brings meaning not only to our patients, but to us as healthcare professionals. He also offers practical ways to restore joy through daily what he calls microhabits of prayer and recognizing the sacredness of every single patient encounter.
So friends, whether you're a seasoned healthcare professional or a trainee just entering the field, I think this conversation today will challenge and it'll encourage you to rediscover God's presence in your work.
So let's dive in.
Well, today on Faith in Health Care, I have a friend of nearly 30 years who's joined us on the program and a friend who has got to meet our senior vice president, Dr. Bill Griffin, who's in the studio with me today to interview our guest, Dr. Mark Topazian. And you've had a chance to spend more time with Mark than I have in the last couple of years, haven't you Griff?
[00:05:54] Speaker C: We have. This is a fascinating topic and I can't imagine a better person to discuss it with than Mark.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Well, Dr. Mark Tapazian is an academic gastroenterologist who has served on faculty at Yale as well as the Mayo Clinic and has now been serving with his wife Janet for the last six years with SIM in the country of Ethiopia in its capital, Addis Ababa, and is teaching GI medicine to fellows and residents or anyone else who, I guess, who probably wants to learn endoscopic techniques.
Dr. Topazian has a rich, rich history dating back into our CMDS years because Dr. Tapazian's father, Dr. David Tapazian, oral surgeon, and Mark you can correct me here if I'm wrong, but was the first oral surgeon, dental surgeon, to become president of cmds and was a dear friend of my chief of surgery, Dr. Bob Schindler. So without any further ado, I do Mark, want to let our listeners know that one of your claims to fame is that you not only scope humans, but you are a marine endoscopist and I think even a killer whale. What kind of whale have you scoped in the past?
[00:07:15] Speaker D: No, not killer whales, but whales and monkeys and snakes. Yeah, all sorts of veterinary endoscopy. It's true.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: And I think you're usually removing foreign bodies. If my memory holds.
[00:07:29] Speaker D: Yeah, that's true. The python had had hematemesis and we were looking into that. But the other ones were foreign bodies. You're right.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Oh, dear. Well, welcome to Faith in Healthcare. And you're here because you've written a book and I can't wait for our listeners to heal about your new book, Healing Purpose, which has just come out. How did you find time to write a book? And is this your first book?
[00:07:55] Speaker D: Yeah, it is. And a book is really different than a scientific journal article, let me tell you, Mike. And I've learned a ton doing this.
This began because my wife Janet, who you mentioned, and I started doing summertime Bible studies in Rochester, Minnesota. The the Christian Health Fellowship group at the med school took summers off. And so we would have folks in our home on a Friday evening during July and August. And they really came because Janet would make this incredible meal and they'd have dinner at our house. But then we do Bible studies on topics relevant to medicine and nursing and clinical care. And we found that these young colleagues were like super interested in that and really wanting to figure out how their faith integrated with their what they were learning and, and what they were learning, how to practice and what they were doing in the clinic and the hospital.
And so we did that for a number of years before we moved to Ethiopia. And those studies and the interactions I had with those great younger colleagues really became the basis for this book. And then here in Addis aba, often on a Friday afternoon, I'd have time to try writing.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Well, the next few minutes, Dr. Griff and I would just like to highlight five takeaways from this book, which you gave me the opportunity to endorse. And I went back to my endorsement and it was basically, I really want every Christian student, resident and fellow read this book before they start practice. That's how vital this work that you have done is. And let's start by a focus. You focus on how the benefits of whole person care, in particular doing spiritual care to our patients, bring benefits to us as healthcare professionals. Can you unpack, just briefly, those benefits to us as we pay attention to the spiritual needs of our patients?
[00:09:53] Speaker D: Sure, Mike. And you know, the subtitle of my book is Finding Satisfaction in a Healthcare Career. And it's really about finding meaning, fulfillment, purpose in your work.
And if you're like me, when you started out in healthcare, nothing made you happier than making sick people better. I mean, that was my experience. And I think that's why many of us went into healthcare, to help people.
But it turns out over time, for many of us, that's not enough.
There are a number of reasons for that.
For one thing, clinical success becomes routine.
When it's the hundredth time or the thousandth time you've cured an infection or delivered a baby or fixed a hernia, it's not quite as thrilling as it was the first time.
And in many clinical settings, success becomes an expectation.
And when there's too much work, it can even be an exhausting demand. And this is an. So clinical success is, I think, an unstable basis for satisfaction in a healthcare career in the long run. And, you know, when you experience an adverse event or a suboptimal patient outcome, as I have, that's when some of this really comes to the fore. Because if your identity is based in yourself as a successful clinician, you're going to experience a lot of turmoil. I think that for me anyway, and for most of us in the long run, the spiritual dimension of healthcare is an important source of resilience, purpose and satisfaction. And how does that work?
I think you're asking me, and during, because you might say, what spiritual dimension? Health care, dentistry, how do those things connect? I think it really started for me with understanding science and faith.
In our professional schools, we learn a set of facts, a scientific set of facts about health, sickness and healing. And together they form sort of a cohesive narrative, a story about health.
And it's very powerful.
It gives us the tools we use every day in medicine and dentistry and scripture also, it turns out, gives us a set of facts about health, sickness and healing.
And it can be hard to understand how do those two things even connect? And you can end up as I have, being, you know, scientifically minded at work and spiritually minded at home and at church. But if I think in fact, those two accounts of health are really one unified account of God's creative and redemptive work, in people's lives. And if you can understand that account, and if you can live in that unified a story about health, sickness and healing while you're at work, you're going to experience all sorts of benefits.
It's going to help you with compassion fatigue, it's going to renew your purpose, it's going to bring you satisfaction and actually make you better at your job. So I think that's where I'm coming from. And the place where it all starts for me in that unified story of the scientific and the spiritual at work is recognizing that God is present.
And it sounds almost like a truism, of course God is present. But it's really easy to walk into the hospital wearing your white coat and your tie, or with your stethoscope or whatever, and not to have any recognition or awareness that God is present, that he's active, and that he's actually working out his purposes in your office or your clinic, or your emergency department or operating room or hospital ward, and that you're actually already a part of his creative and redemptive work there.
Tuning into that reality in real time is good for us in all sorts of ways.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Great.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: One of the things I really appreciate about your book, Marc, is that you don't jump right into an immediate consideration of how we interact with patients. You start out by laying a foundation for this topic, some of the things the scripture says regarding how to understand faith and healthcare. Can you share with us some of those foundational passages that are so important?
[00:14:43] Speaker D: Sure. Thank you, Bill. That's a great question. And maybe I can just give an example of the biblical concept of health as a place to start. So, you know, the Bible uses a number of different Hebrew and Greek words for health, but probably the best known one is the Hebrew word shalom.
And if you look at shalom and its use in the Old Testament, you discover that the biblical idea of health is much broader than the physical.
That health well being involves physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, material, social well being, and that you are really healthy when you're firing on all six cylinders.
And that has real implications.
Just that idea has real implications in the clinic. So, you know, some of us are often seeing routine, curable, addressable sorts of health problems. Maybe your days are full of green stick fractures, urinary tract infections, acid reflux, etc, etc, and you can address all these and you can fix all these.
Oftentimes that's all the patient needs to restore their well being, even in that larger sense of shalom. But there's other times when that Routine problem is the tip of the iceberg. And there's something else going on in that patient's life that's sort of becoming visible, manifesting as that health issue.
And there might be stress or turmoil or lifestyle issues, relational issues, financial issues.
And scripture says we are body, soul and spirit all knit tightly together, and those things are impacting each other. Science also says that psychological and spiritual issues impact physical health and, and vice versa. And so it's when we recognize that in reality, in our day to day practice, it's kind of like putting 3D glasses on. I don't know. Have you ever been to one of those movies where they give you the 3D glasses and all of a sudden you know, stuff is jumping off the screen at you? Well, your patients are 3D their body, soul and spirit, and living in that awareness of shalom. In your clinic, you're going to be more alert to those situations with a routine, curable problem where it's the tip of the iceberg. And there's something else here that needs attention.
Now, we also take care of people who have serious or complex illnesses that are limiting their life in important ways.
Those things aren't so routine necessarily.
Many of those patients are asking themselves larger questions about life, the meaning of life. They're asking, why me? You know, what did I do to deserve this?
And science explains the mechanisms of those illnesses and gives us insight into treatment.
Scripture talks less about the how of those illnesses and more about the why, the meaning, the significance of those illnesses. And that's exactly what many of our patients are asking themselves.
But one of the issues for our patients is that the answer they settle on about why me?
Can sometimes be counterproductive, and it can actually extinguish their hope and impair their response to treatment. For instance, the patient concludes, God is punishing them with those illness. That's a maladaptive understanding of why me?
Or they feel like they're caught in the machinery of a meaningless universe, or they think their health issue is sort of a cosmic retribution for their past misdeeds, a sort of an IOU come do, and there's really nothing to do about it. So all of these things can steal their hope and impair their response to treatment. The scriptural view on this issue is much broader than that, and it's an important source of hope. So there's a couple of examples where understanding how the science and scriptural understandings come together can really make a difference in the clinic.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: Those are good examples. And with regard to how patients involvement in Spiritual pursuits affects their health. You say on page 38, you say the data we've reviewed lead to the conclusion that robust spirituality has health benefits.
What are some of those benefits that patients are likely to experience if they have a strong approach to spirituality in their life?
[00:19:40] Speaker D: Yeah, great question.
Body, soul and spirit impact each other. They leave footprints on each other.
There's ample scientific data to support that. Multiple studies across different countries, different cultures show that people who regularly engage in the life of a religious community live longer.
And there's meta analyses of these studies that, that support that and the mortality. So the way these studies happened, they were, they were epidemiologic studies. One of the first was a study of Jewish men in Israel and, and they followed 10,000 Jewish men for a decade. And they showed that those who went to synagogue at least once a week were, I forget, the percentage now is about 20 some percent lower mortality rate after 10 years than men who never went to synagogue. And if you looked in between, at the frequency of religious practice, it fit. So there was a gradient.
And we have subsequent studies like that from the us, from the Nurses Health Study, studies from Asia and from South America showing similar things.
It's clear that participating in the life of a religious community is good for people.
Gabor Giori says it's like putting oil in a car, in your car engine. It's just good for the engine.
David Larson from Duke said, you know, if spirituality was a pill, we give it to our patients because it has such an important benefit and spirituality, participating in a religious community is also helps people cope with illness when illness comes.
And none of this data, Bill, actually proves that God exists or that religion is true or that one religion is better than another. And that's, that's actually very powerful because it means the benefit of religion doesn't depend on what I think or you think or our colleagues think about religion. There's a scientific fact it's good for people. And by the way, it's not religious affiliation that matters, it's actual participation in religious services. So, so the, the fact that it is, if you like, agnostic to the truth of religion means it's widely applicable. And it's the reason that leading secular societies say we ought to take an interest in our patient's spirituality, regardless of our own individual views.
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[00:24:22] Speaker C: Well, it's encouraging but not surprising that when you recognize and acknowledge and pursue your Creator that there are benefits to our health in this regard as well. And looking at the flip side, I remember Mike once saying that for a healthcare professional to ignore an area that has been shown empirically to have strong positive benefits for our patients is the equivalent of spiritual malpractice and negligence.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: And you know Mark, as I've traveled and heard these discussions about a spiritual history being taken, audiences that I've shared with or been a part of are so surprised to hear that there are these bodies, these international bodies that we all recognize as having authority in speaking into our clinical situations and setting standards.
And I understand why agnostic and atheists maybe don't want to acknowledge those things, but I don't understand why our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ don't capitalize on the fact that the American association of Medical Colleges and the Joint Commission, I mean you list them in your book that World Health Organization, International Council all say take a spiritual history and so I don't understand why we don't capitalize on that more. But your book points that out that the science is clear that we need to recognize the spiritual nature of our patients and capitalize on the benefit that you and Griff have just been talking about for them.
Let's switch gears just a little bit.
You talk earlier, you mentioned that it all boils down to the heart of this issue is recognizing the presence of God in our lives as we go throughout our day. And it's great to start to begin with what's most important. And you describe some microhabits mark in our day. And it made me think just of a couple simple things that I would practice both in the US and in Kenya when I was a missionary, which was on the way to the hospital and in Michigan, that was in my car for 15 minutes and at 10 MC it was a 7 minute walk up a hill.
But transitioning from my devotional time at home into a clinical mindset of I've got patients to see but praying over the list, you know, especially those who are sickest and walking through them. So it helped me do rounds, it helped me prepare for my rounds, but it also committed my patients to God. And the second thing was as a surgeon and at the sink washing my hands and thinking Romans 12:1 and 2, that you know, a living sacrifice, that it was someone who was non medical who observed me doing that and said, you're lifting up your hands as you go into that operating room. That's worship.
And so I was transformed by a non medical person observing the practice of washing my hands. It's like I'll never be the same. But help us unpack. What are some other microhabits that our listeners could think about that maybe they're not already practicing could help them, as Brother Lawrence said, to practice the presence of God.
[00:27:22] Speaker D: Well, Mike, those are beautiful examples from your own life. Thank you for sharing them. And I just want to point out that praying over your patients on the way to the hospital or the clinic, you are connecting in your own mind, in your own heart, their medical surgical issue or dental issue for some of us. Right. But you're connecting that with God's presence and his intentions in their life. And that is powerful.
And so that's beautiful. And then your, your comment about scripture verses coming to mind while you're scrubbing is also beautiful and powerful. You know, in the book I tell my own experience of memorizing scripture as a kid, I would memorize Bible verses on the way in the car on the way to church, so I could recite them the assigned verses in Sunday school and then forget them on the way home. So, you know, memorization was never like a big thing for me as a kid. And it wasn't until well into the middle of life that out of frustration actually that I went back to memorizing. And I began to memorize very differently, very slowly, just a sentence at a time or a phrase at a time. And I started working through small bits and into bigger bits. And I remember I'd been memorizing Philippians for months and had gotten to Philippians 4, and in the middle of an interventional procedure one day, things were not going well.
And you know, when things aren't going well, there's natural instinct to look for someone to blame, right? Blame the anesthesiologist, blame the patient, blame your assistant. Something.
None of that is actually terribly helpful. But. But.
But instead, those verses from Philippians 4 were just like un. You know, I wasn't looking for them. All of a sudden, they were just there shouting in my head, you know, let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything.
But in everything with Thanksgiving, present your request to God. And I remember in that moment just saying, thank you, Lord, that you're here. And it changed that situation and that case so dramatically. And that became like a mantra for me in those moments, in the years afterwards. So I really relate to your stories. But to get back to microhabits, this is a term that a social scientist named BJ Fogg originally coined as best I know.
And the idea is they are small, simple things that are easy to put in your life and that make a small difference and that accumulate over time. So, for instance, reading a book would be a goal, but a microhabit would be to say, I'm going to read one page a day.
Doesn't take much time. Easy to do, but you'll get through the book. Right? So.
So what about those microhabits? I think these are key because your faith can support you as you move through your day. Like water supports or floats a boat. And you know, when you're out on the water sailing or rowing or rafting, you're not really thinking all the time about the water is supporting me, but it is.
And you're about the things you're about, but the. But it's supporting you. And it's the same with your faith at work.
So what are those microhabits? Well, some of them are just reminders, you know, And. And the reminders that work for me are one thing, your phone lock screen, if you can put a picture on your phone lock screen or a verse.
So how often do you look at your phone during the day? But, you know, the verse I like is, the Lord is the strength of my life, but you Might have something else you want to put there. I think that's powerful. Your login to whatever electronic medical record you might be using. How many times do you type that a day? So if it can be something that reminds you that God is there, that's very helpful. And then short prayers at recurring moments. And you've already touched on this, but there are moments in all of our days when there's a few seconds for a silent prayer. And it might be, as you said, scrubbing for surgery. It might be washing your hands between patients. It might be you're in the hallway between one patient room and another patient room. It might be you're just standing in line in the cafeteria. But if those moments can become moments for prayer, and it doesn't have to be a fancy prayer. I mean, it can just reflect where you are at.
It can be, thanks, Lord, that you're here.
It can be, wow, that was a sad case.
You know, there. But for your goodness, go I.
It can be, thank you for healing that patient.
It can be, Lord, I'm feeling down and distracted today. Spirit, I need your help. You know, these. They're simple prayers. They don't take very long, but they connect you to God's presence.
And, you know, we could talk about lament, a more sort of formal structure of prayer that actually can be condensed down into two seconds. I write about that in the book and give an acronym for using it because I found it's really helpful to me in my days.
And then another way, another microhabit, Mike, is to actually make spirituality part of your conversation in clinical contexts. And because that reminds you God is there and the spiritual history we've already mentioned. But there's. There's other ways, you know, offering prayer, and there's nuanced ways to offer prayer to patients. I think that itself deserves a whole conversation offering spiritual resources in response to specific patient concerns. For instance, where I work now, the financial implications of sickness are a big deal for my patients here. You know, are they going to be able to pay for their care?
Are they going to have a job when they get done?
Are they going to be able to support their family?
And the Bible has some very helpful things to say about that. So if I find out my patients are really tied in a knot about that, I can offer some of that biblical wisdom. I'm not giving them the four spiritual laws.
I'm just saying, you know, a wise man once said, we plan of our futures, but God's directing our steps step by step, and he's going to direct your steps. And, you know, it's hard for people to argue with that one. Let's take it a day at a time. So. So there's all sorts of ways to make these things microhabits and that are really good for us to practice. Yeah.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: And I was just thinking that one of my favorite prayers, even to this day at CMDA is doing mostly administration, certainly not surgery anymore. But our listeners and each one of us, we go into a lot of meetings, right? I mean, we're parts of lots of meetings with people. So my favorite is David's prayer in Psalm 141, 3, Lord, set a guard over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips. And I think he probably likes to hear that prayer. And so I envision this angel standing guard over my mouth to just stop me when I'm getting ready to say something hurtful or critical that's going to hurt my relationship with others or my reputation.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: What I love about all these examples that you're giving is it's a response to the fact that Jesus is the vine, we're the branches, and it's as we're abiding in him that we'll be able to bear the fruit to his glory.
[00:35:27] Speaker D: So true, Bill.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: And so I know that no matter how much a healthcare professional enjoys their career and the work that they do, that there come times when we suffer compassion fatigue, burnout, whatever it might be.
What do you see as some of the root causes of this and how can we get back on track?
[00:35:50] Speaker D: Yeah, so really important topic, especially these days. You know, surveys during the COVID epidemic showed up to 95% of healthcare providers were suffering compassion fatigue.
And it's part of why so many people are leaving our professions these days.
Maybe we could start with a couple of definitions, Bill. So compassion is a caring concern for others that motivates you to help them.
It's an expression of what the New Testament calls agape love, sort of a beneficial concern for others.
Expect that motivates you, expecting nothing in return. And it's different from empathy. Empathy is the ability to feel what someone else is feeling, to walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak.
Compassion fatigue is the weariness.
It's just a tiredness and an emotional weariness that comes from the chronic exposure to difficult situations, the constant offering of oneself to others.
It's complex. We know that a lot of this has to do with our own human limitations and the structures of the systems we work in. For instance, we know that work hours are particularly important and that if you're working too many hours, regularly, habitually, week after week, you're highly likely to suffer compassion fatigue.
We also know if you're working in a system where you have more responsibility in your workday than any one person can possibly handle, you know that you're highly likely to get compassion fatigue. If you don't have any time away from the electronic medical record, month after month, year after year, you know, you have to respond within three hours to every message or whatever it is, you are highly likely to suffer compassion fatigue.
But the fact is you can all address all of those things and still experience compassion fatigue. And that's because it has a spiritual component. And there your spirit can suffer as you are constantly exposed to difficult situations, as you constantly give yourself to others. It's a form of suffering that we as healthcare professionals endure or experience.
And unfortunately, sometimes the result is it leads us to a practical skepticism about the goodness of God. I mean, I've been there, you know, after a long, even just a long week on an inpatient service, with a lot of things not going well for a lot of patience, it's a little harder to really believe in my heart that God is a good God of steadfast love. Huh? He is. But it's much less apparent to me at the end of that week. And so it's possible, as you experience these things, to actually have a mind that's theologically correct, but a heart that is distant and cold towards God. And it turns out that's not a healthy response to compassion fatigue. So scripture, the story of Job, makes it clear to us that there's a lot we don't understand about suffering, including our own suffering of compassion fatigue. But we can choose how we respond to it. And Bible says a healthy spiritual response is to turn to God, not to turn away from God, to affirm that he is good, even when it doesn't appear that way to us, to have integrity about that, to lament before God, and even to seek a new experience of God in the experience of. Of. Of compassion fatigue. And some of those things lament repentance. Turning to scripture can become microhabits in our days. And the reason that these spiritual responses are effective is that we as that we are conduits of compassion. We are not generators of compassion. Right?
Second Corinthians, chapter one.
We experience God's comfort so that we can share comfort with others.
And it's the spirit of the Lord present with us at our workplaces that can fill up our compassion. And so as we, as we Connect with God at work. It's something that mitigates our compassion fatigue, forestalls compassion fatigue. It doesn't eliminate those structural things I talked about, which absolutely need to be addressed and are very important.
But there's a spiritual component. And we as Christians have this fantastic resource, our faith and the Spirit within us, bringing us God's caring concern so that we can pass it on to others.
[00:40:38] Speaker C: I love the example in the book of Elijah, who you mentioned, that even the success he enjoyed on Mount Carmel could have eventually contributed to his compassion fatigue.
I don't know if he was in health care, but he certainly battled some of the same challenges we do.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:56] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. He's burnt out in that story. And you're right, it's his success. I think his success exhausts him. He's been in this conflict for years with the prophets of baal, and he had. There's this tremendous victory, but it exhausts him. And he ends up fleeing for his life, leaving behind his trusted companion, which, you know, if you're thinking in shalom terms, you don't want to be alone. You want that social network.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: And.
[00:41:23] Speaker D: And he's burnt out. And it's fascinating to see how God responds to that. You know, he responds first by meeting his physical needs, and then he. He brings him to Mount Carmel, and he takes his history of present illness. He says, well, what's. You know, what's. What's going on? Elijah. And he asked. Says that twice, and Elijah tells his story twice. And God responds to his sick spirit by showing him that he can appreciate God's presence. Not in dramatic events like what happened on Mark Caramel, but in the stillness of life, in the quietness of life. And he restores his soul by saying, you know, you're not actually alone. There's thousands of people on my side here, and I've got work for you still to do. I think some commentators look at the story of Elijah and they say, well, he blew it. He failed, and so God replaced him.
That's not my view of that story at all. My view of that story is that, like all of us, he reached his limit.
And God met him at that moment and took care of him and helped him finish his calling. So, yeah, he's a merciful God.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: You know, Mark, I have a memory of you and I running through tea fields at 8,000ft elevation outside Brackenhurst, and you made me look like I didn't live at 7,000ft. You were effortless. Even though you came from Rochester.
You made it.
[00:42:58] Speaker D: Yeah, that was a long time ago.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Well, after I read your book I'm like, man, I wish I had written this book. This is just amazing. It's just such a central core part of CMDA and each one of us who felt called into dentistry and to GI and surgery, finding satisfaction or healthcare career. So thank you for writing this book and for our listeners benefit the two of you, Griff and Mark have been working with Dr. Gabor Giori from Hungary from International Sailing Process and Sailing Process Witness training. And so that training is an iteration that's almost 30 years now.
Some sort of training has been happening beginning with saying the solution which Griff was there at the beginning.
What are the strongest components of this training that Mark, you have really encouraged us in the US You've been teaching part of that in Ethiopia now for years. But what are the strongest components? And why should our listeners go to cmda.orgsaline saline and sign up for the nearest course as soon as possible because you guys have some courses coming up and I just want to hear what is it about this course that helps physicians, dentists, other healthcare professionals integrate faith into their healthcare?
[00:44:18] Speaker D: Yeah, great question. So. And thanks for the opportunity to talk about this, Mike. So a lot of the stuff we've been talking about today has to do with my interior life as a healthcare professional and how faith can support me like water floats a boat, make me more resilient, restore my joy, give me purpose and satisfaction. Saline Process does some of that, but it's also more geared towards how is God using me in the life of my patient. And the focus is perhaps a little more on the patient than the caregiver themselves. And so both of these things are quite important. I think Saline will give you as a provider some concepts and some practical tools about integrating your faith into your patient interaction in a way that will really address your patient's spiritual health and ways to encourage your patient's spiritual health.
Perhaps one of my and you know that setting, let me just say it's very different than the usual setting where a Christian thinks about evangelism in a, in a non medical setting. You know, healthcare is a special environment and it's going to be different than buttonholing someone on the sidewalk or even talking to a neighbor or a colleague about faith.
So Sailing Process concepts that I particularly like are the concept that my patient is on a journey toward faith and my role in that might be to help them take their next step that I'm not here today to necessarily go from A to Z with them all at once and that whatever I do, interacting with my patient about their spiritual health ought to be done with their permission and with sensitivity and respect.
I really like those concepts because they can drive us rather than a sense of compulsion or guilt about this matter.
Then Sailing Process provides eight practical tools for how to actually do that when you're talking to a patient.
I think some of them that are particularly helpful from my point of view are a review and practice with spiritual history and how to shape that and modify it for your context and a discussion about how to use questions to unpack your patient's spiritual situation and health and how to pray with patients when and how and what to do and what not to do. I think. But there are eight tools. But those I think are especially relevant and helpful to many people who take the training. Bill, you want to comment about this?
[00:47:13] Speaker C: Yes. You've mentioned some great aspects of the program. And another thing that I see, and I know that you've recognized this as well, is that the saline process witness training is not a download of information from the trainers to the attendees. It is horizontally chewing on this material with role playing, with small group discussions so that you're more able to implement it on Monday. And that's a big part of what I really appreciate about the program. So each event, the amount of information that's available at each event is going to greatly depend on the participants and their experiences and their openness to what God has done in their lives.
[00:47:53] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, it's true. And you know, you think about it, all of us spent years in professional school learning how to do what we do. But most of us got zero formal training in any aspect of spirituality, integration into our work. And so this is like an eight hour workshop. But. And a lot of you listening have figured out some aspects of this on your own. But this will kind of put it all together for you and you'll learn so much from your fellow attendees, from the trainers, just from what God does in those eight hours that yeah, I think it's valuable for pretty much all of us.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: So, Griff, you have some trainings coming up. Tell our listeners, what are those trainings? When are they available? How can they sign up?
[00:48:35] Speaker C: We do, we have three open for registration right now. The first will be November 1st in Toronto. And then we'll be following that up with a program on November 5th and 6th in Louisville as a pre conference for GMHC, the Global Missions Health Conference. And then There'll be a third event in the Dallas Fort Worth area on November 14th and 15th. We have four other areas that are pursuing possibilities as well. So if any of our listeners would like to either attend an event or consider helping to plan an event in their area, they can get more information at the website cmda.orgsaline and not to.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: Put you on the spot, but what about the national convention next spring? Do we got anything prepared for that?
[00:49:17] Speaker C: We are at least going to have a saline process taster event, a one hour presentation on the components that are present in the program and I'd love to also have a pre conference salient process event as well.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: Well Mark, I appreciate your publisher IVP Academics I think Academics I think that's the name of your publisher. They've been very helpful and we're going to have a book giveaway as part of this program when it comes out and I'm also planning on giving out a number of copies to our House of Representatives here in November. I just think that much of this book and I know we're going to be giving to some major donors in the future. This is a thank you gift. So thank you for fitting it in. Thank you for your wife who probably had to put up with I don't know how many hours it took you to do this. I'm sure it was a lot of hours. So our love and greetings to Janet there in Addis and may the Lord bless you as you are passing to the next generation or two these principles, these concepts and look forward to getting to see you in the future, various CMDA activities and events and keep it up until Jesus comes back and I hope to see.
[00:50:28] Speaker D: Well thank you so much and I.
[00:50:30] Speaker C: Hope to see you in Toronto and Dallas at two of those events.
[00:50:34] Speaker D: Absolutely Bill, looking forward to it and thanks so much for this opportunity to share with you all and to hear your perspectives. It's been great.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: Okay friends, what an Inspiring reminder from Dr. Mark Topazian that medicine is about far more and let me include surgery in that since I was a general surgeon. Far more than treating disease, it's about joining God in His redemptive work of healing body, mind and spirit. As Dr. Tapazian shared, Our greatest purpose isn't for found only in curing, but in caring as Jesus Christ did. His book Healing Purpose offers biblical insight, evidence based research and practical steps to help us counter burnout, renew our joy and rediscover the deeper meaning behind our sacred calling. We're so grateful for the wisdom and encouragement that Mark has shared with all of us.
If you'd like to lean further into five finding purpose, we would like to encourage you to explore something that Dr. Depazian has invested a great deal of time in and that is Saline Process Witness Training. It's a hands on workshop that equips you to take a spiritual history to pray with your patients and engage faith in clinical settings with both sensitivity and respect.
Learn more and find an event that that will take place near you by going to CMDA.org events if this episode today encouraged you, please share it with a colleague or a student resident or a friend. And be sure to follow Faith in Healthcare on your favorite podcast platform and social media to stay connected and don't miss our book giveaway for Healing Purpose on our social media channels.
At cmda, our mission is always to educate, encourage and equip Christian healthcare professionals to live out their faith with courage and compassion. If you're not yet part of this growing community, we'd love to welcome you aboard. Just visit CMDA.org join and become part of a movement of Christ followers that is transforming health care through the love of Jesus Christ.
Up next week on the podcast I'm going to be joined by pediatric trauma surgeon Dr. John Petty. He's going to address the rise in firearm injuries among children and how Christian healthcare professionals can respond with both compassion and courage.
From practical steps in prevention and safety awareness to caring well for our surgical teams after tragedy and nurturing a strong spiritual life during the training years, this is going to be an important episode that you don't want to miss.
Thanks for listening today to Faith and Healthcare. It's the weekly podcast from the Christian Medical and Dental Associations where our mission remains the same, bringing the hope and healing of Jesus Christ to the world through committed Christ followers within healthcare.
That's what matters to cmda.
May you recognize this week that the Lord Jesus is with you and that he is for you to do his good work.
Thanks for listening today and we will see you next time, Lord willing, on Faith in Health care. Bye for now.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Faith in Healthcare. The CMDA Matters Podcast.
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This podcast has been a production of Christmas 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.
