Following Christ 2008: Healthcare Track
Welcome to the Healthcare Track informational page for Following Christ 2008! Read here about our plans for the program and get to know those who are leading the track.
You may be interested in participating in this track if you are or are studying to become a physician, nurse, dentist, pharmacist, speech pathologist, health-care administrator, other health-care professional or researcher, or one who works in public health. If research is your focus, you might also consider the Natural Sciences & Mathematics Track.
Return to the Tracks page to consider other options available to you. |
Track Leaders
Debra Schwinn, Chair
Debra Schwinn is currently Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology and Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology & Genome Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is a practicing anesthesiologist, principal investigator of an NIH-funded molecular pharmacology laboratory where she studies adrenergic receptors and perioperative stress responses, member of the Institute of Medicine, and a national research leader. Debra earned her B.A. in chemistry from the College of Wooster (Ohio) and M.D. from the Stanford University School of Medicine, then completed her anesthesiology residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and clinical cardiothoracic anesthesiology and basic science fellowships at Duke University Medical Center. After a 21-year career at Duke, ending with her being the James B. Duke Professor of Anesthesiology and Director of Cardiovascular Genomics in the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, Debra moved in 2007 to the University of Washington in Seattle. During her career, Debra has held numerous faculty positions and had the opportunity to train and mentor many students, residents, and fellows. She and her husband, Bob Gerstmyer, have two teenage children and currently attend University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. In her spare time, Debra plays the violin and enjoys 19th century Russian novels.
 John Bayon has been on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Detroit since 1990 and has served the Christian Medical and Dental Associations’ Wayne State and University of Detroit-Mercy chapters since 1999. He also leads a summer training institute for undergraduate students who move to Detroit to serve and learn about the poor. He has a degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and is completing an M.T.S. degree, with an emphasis on Paul’s understanding of Christian identity, from Michigan Theological Seminary. John lives in Detroit with his wife, Cindy, six children, and one bullmastiff dog, Diego. They attend Ward Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Northville.
Program Summary
We are fallen people, disconnected and rootless. Many healthcare practitioners, even those who claim Jesus Christ as Lord and who originally entered medicine eagerly to be a vehicle for God’s work, may ultimately become ineffective in transforming medicine as a discipline. Why? Sometimes it’s because good works in the absence of inner transformation are hollow, even when they appear altruistic. Instead God uses people willing to be silent, to listen to Him, and to be transformed at the deepest level. Continual openness to God’s transformation is key to spiritual growth that refreshes and prepares us to care for others. Only this type of transformation leads to human flourishing.
The Healthcare track at Following Christ 2008 will address the theme of human flourishing on multiple fronts. We will discuss how professionals can flourish as individuals through rootedness and nourishment. We will talk about the pressures that training and delivery systems place on the spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing of providers, as well as offer practical ways to be integrated, whole people in the health profession. Such preparation allows us to truly focus on others in order to be used by God wherever he places us.
Having said this, post-Christian culture challenges the Christian understanding of healthcare with its expectations of an archetypal human wholeness through “medical miracles.” Is this really what human flourishing is all about? How might Christian understandings of healthcare, which incorporate human wholeness under Christ’s reign, look different? We will discuss ideas of wholeness and how these ideas affect our care for others.
Christian healthcare deliverers operate under the burden of caring and serving human health needs. They await God’s final resolution and presently see their service as integral to God’s providential reign. They experience the tension of living in the world of physical, psychological, and emotional suffering and waiting expectantly for the fulfillment of God’s promise to make all things whole and right. This has vital implications for systems of delivery and for wider, societal healthcare considerations. What does the reality of Christ’s present reign offer for shaping how Christian practitioners serve and influence the “big picture” of health care? What are possible strategies, challenges, and dreams we might attempt with our final Christian hope in mind? How does the promise of future health and wholeness affect our work toward current human flourishing? We will address all these questions in the Healthcare track. Come and join us.
Presentations
Roots & Nourishment
- “Nourishing the Soul: The Need for Continual Spiritual Refilling,” Debra A. Schwinn, M.D.
Wholeness & Caring
- “The Christian Doctor’s Faith Is Not Irrational but Supra-Rational,” John Patrick, M.D.
- “Caring Presence,” Emily A. Hitchens, Ed.D., R.N.
- “The Post-Modern Sickness — Forgotten Words,” John Patrick, M.D.
Outreach
- “Faith & Practice: Christ-Centered Medicine Where God Plants You,” James B. McAuley, M.D., and Amy E. McAuley, M.D.
Track Presenters
Emily Hitchens
Amy McAuley was born in the US and grew up in England and Egypt. She received a BS in Zoology from Duke University, an MD from the University of Chicago, and an MHP from Emory. She has been married for 23 years and has four children. She has worked for the last sixteen years, cross culturally at Lawndale Christian Health Center, an inner-city clinic serving the poor in Chicago as an internist and a pediatrician. She has been a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston for the last nineteen years, serving in youth ministry, mission outreach, pastoral care and adult discipleship. Her international work has been with the Medical Benevolence Foundation and the Presbyterian Church USA in Kenya, Ethiopia, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Malawi.
James McAuley
John Patrick retired from the University of Ottawa in June 2002. He had been Associate Professor in Clinical Nutrition in the Department of Biochemistry and Paediatrics for twenty years. Dr. Patrick’s medical training was in London, England. He has done extensive research into the treatment of childhood nutritional deficiency and related diseases holding appointments in Britain, the West Indies, and Canada. He has worked in Central Africa assisting in the development of training programs that deal with childhood protein-energy malnutrition. Dr. Patrick now lectures throughout the world working for the Christian Medical and Dental Society in Canada and the Christian Medical and Dental Association in the United States. He speaks frequently to Christian and secular groups and is able to communicate effectively on moral issues in medicine and culture and the integration of faith and science.
Reading List
Speaker 1: Debra Schwinn, “Nourishing the Soul: The Need for Continual Spiritual Refilling”
Baab, Lynne M. Sabbath Keeping. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 2005
* Benner, David G. Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL 2003.
Foster, Richard J. Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home. San Francisco, CA 1992.
May, Gerald G. Simply Sane. The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, NY 1993 (updated version with chapters 14, 15 and introduction).
* Mulholland, M Robert Jr. Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation. Upper Room Books, Nashville, TN 2000.
Nouwen, Henri. Making All Things New. Harper, San Francisco 1981.
Nouwen, Henri. The Way of the Heart. Ballantine Books, New York 1981.
Thompson, Margaret J. Soul Feast. Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY 2005.
* Optional suggested reading prior to arrival (books available on site).
Speaker 2: John Patrick, “The Christian Doctor’s Faith Is Not Irrational but Supra-Rational” and “The Post-Modern Sickness – Forgotten Words”
Anderson PM. Professors Who Believe. Intervarsity Press 1998.
Hauerwas S. Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic. Univ of Notre Dame Press 1988.
Lewis B. What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. Oxford Univ Press 2007.
Lindberg DC. The Beginnings of Western Science. Univ of Chicago Press 1992.
MacIntyre A. After Virtue: A Study of Moral Theology. Univ of Notre Dame Press 2006.
Newbigin L. Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture. Eerdmana 1986.
Newbigin L. Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Eerdmans 1995.
Newbigin L. The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society. Eerdmana 1989.
Speaker 3: Emily Hitchins, “Caring Presence”
Bakken K. Journey into God: Healing and Christian Faith. Augsburg, Minneapolis, MN 2000.
O’Brien ME. A Sacred Covenant, the Spiritual Ministry of Nursing. Jones & Bartlett, Boston, MA 2008.
Speaker 4: James & Amy McAuley, “Faith & Practice: Christ-Centered Medicine Where God Plants You”
Guiness O. The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. W. Publishing Group, TN 2003.
McGee RS. The Search for Significance: Seeing Your True Worth Through God’s Eyes. W. Publishing Group. TN 2003.
|
