“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
John Wesley
This is the founder of Methodism, the discipline in which I was raised. It branched off from Anglicanism, got rid of the pomp and circumstance, and took religion back to the people--rather like the American Constitution did for government, though most of the Founding Fathers were still identified with the Anglican Church, or Episcopalian as it also revolted from its English Mother. It was a time of great arrogance in England, much as the USA is experiencing right now. Those people of great thought tried to reform, and when reform failed, they were willing to fight, and lay down their lives for what they believed in. However, one will note that what we consider as "good," the creation of a government for the people, and by the people was undertaken by those of great humility, such as George Washington.
If I could inject service anywhere in my life it would be into my profession. Doctoring is the greatest of all service professions--yes, more than nursing because we take the ultimate responsibility on our shoulders and we accept that when we enter our training--that we will have the ultimate responsibility. It is like being the captain of a ship, or a CEO, even if you are "merely" the captain of your patients' health. Like captains, there are good ones and bad ones. This is why surgery was originally separate from doctoring, and in reality still is. Surgeons are like tugboats or towboats--one hires them for a certain amount of time to move this large ship off of the reefs it has gotten itself onto, or nudge it into dock for the repair to start. Specialists are pilots that get you through a tight spot where local knowledge is invaluable. Good captains can get through a lot, with a bit of advice. Unfortunately, because we pay so little for advice, and so much for the intervention off the reefs, we get a lot of checking first for reefs, and we spend way too much on the hiring of pilots and tugboats.
Our current medical system is like The Love Boat, where even the Gopher thinks that the Captain is stupid, and he knows better. The captains are so busy running around trying to organize the ship, that they have no time to learn the local waters--and they have the specter of a legal suit if they put the damn ship into the shallows, let alone on the reefs. So we are paying higher and higher prices because we have turned the helm over to the pilots, and the helmsmen, the cooks who want to be captain, and we have hired the tugboats to navigate us across the deep seas. No wonder it was the Navy who has switched to a system of using family physicians the way they should be used. Psychiatrists, opthalmologists, lawyers, and accountants all have their captains and their pilots, their tugboats and tow boats, because they are complex systems. How much more do we need a family physician for systems biology to really be applied to our health? Instead of it being known as the field where the least intelligent students wind up--as it was in my day, and as far as I can see, still is treated like everyone else can do it better---it should be where we encourage our best and brightest to put their skills. We have encouraged the splitting of medicine for six decades, now is the time to encourage the integration of medicine. Get the captain out of the office, off the phone, and back guiding the helmsman, and on the bridge of the ship where he/she can see the big picture!
Yes, we can use PAs, NPs, genetic counselors, dieticians, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, psychologists, and a whole host of other paraprofessionals, but we need to put a Captain who knows the whole ship at the top and make the pilots answer to him or her, and he deserves to be paid according to his broad expertise.
Okay, enough of the Joe Morris--that's what my family calls me when I get on my soapbox, after my grandfather who wrote frequent letters to the local papers. He finally started his own blog--a weekly column for the small town paper. I am SO much like him in so many ways. He encouraged me when my own father would have held me down. I wish I could have seen how much then, and told him so.
Where can we do service? Charity starts at home--what can I do to improve my field and utilize peoples' talents the best and encourage the people with whom I work to be their best? What can I do to help my family be the best they can be? There will be limits depending on how receptive people are and how diplomatic you can be.
Once you have done your best with that, then look to society and see what you can do there that feeds your soul with the joy of giving, what is important to you. Answer the question, "How can I make a lasting difference?" Meanwhile, support your own spirituality, for service done without humility often creates more evil than it does good.
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