Patience

Within my residency program is built a unique dual-site program experience: the first site is our downtown clinic at the main hospital serving an urban underserved population while the second is a rural clinic site. At this second site in rural Pennsylvania, we residents must learn how to care for the rural poor often times in the same day we work back in the afternoons at the downtown clinic. Very challenging!

Apparently the unique challenge at the rural site is the way patients abuse narcotics. Because the selling and abuse of narcotics is so high in this area, patients must sign a contract agreeing that they will only accept prescription drugs from one clinic site; must have urine tests during scheduled office visits; and promise to not sell any narcotics. A 3rd year resident and fellow brother in the Lord tells me of how frequent his patients break this trust agreement as they go from physician to physician abusing the use of narcotics. My friend had a of pain in his voice as he seems to takes this abuse of trust personally.

“But the way that I think if it”, he says, “Is that this it a way to enter in to the way that God loves us. In the same way that we fail God and abuse our trust with him, so our patients abuse our trust and yet we cannot give up on them. God is redeeming us through his patience and never turns us away; so we must help to bring redemption to our patients lives and never give up on them.”

The way we view God greatly affects our care for patients.

Transitions

There is a challenge for most of us residents in transitory nature of our lives. We can feel a sense of impermanence as we make the journey from college to medical school to residency. Yet there is a blessing in the new experiences and unknown travels that catalyze an Abrahamic-like faith as we 'go' into the unknown and move to new cities and states for our various training programs. But as we make our way from out of our college years and into our late 20s, and early 30s, where is the permanence that we long for? I wonder if other residents feel a tension on how to maintain past friendships, and the challenge of maintaining each layer of relationships added to the complex social fabric we have become.

As I have matched into a new geographical location for residency - another layer added to my social fabric - I now try to remake myself in a new community while at the same time try to keep in touch with my previous community.

Join with me as we can rejoice in the new opportunities ahead of us as residents. Let us not look back but with trust and confidence look forward to new opportunities ahead. God is good and is always providing! God makes no mistakes and we are right where we belong!

Dear Lord, help us in this season to join anew a new community of your Body as we transition out of medical school and into residency. That we could be joined to your Body with each transition and change in life.