PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

December 8, 2021

HEALTH CARE

One of the hot political topics these days is health care.  Perhaps one of the problems in all of the suggestions is that they are based on funding and providing a type of health of care that will be radically different in ten years.  National Geographic in their January, 2019, issue points out some of the changes that will be taking place.

The April 2019 issue of The Smithsonian has a feature about the first artificial heart implant in 1968 by Dr. Denton Cooley at St. Luke’s Hospital located at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas.  From June of 1967 until May of 1968 I was a student at the Institute of Religion located at the Medical Center where breakthroughs were taking place not only by Dr. Cooley but also by Dr. Michael DeBakey in the treatment of heart disease.   When I was a student at the Institute of Religion a person undergoing a heart transplant could be in the hospital for several months.  Today stays are measured in days.  One of the major problems of rejection is long a thing of the past.

In the days since I completed my clinical year at the Institute of Religion tremendous strides have been made in many areas of health care in addition to the treatment of heart disease.  What was in patient surgery when I started in ministry in 1968 is now routinely outpatient.  Many new drugs and techniques have been developed to treat a wide variety of diseases and illnesses.  National Geographic suggests that this changing nature of medicine will increase in the future.

Two important aspects of the future of medicine according to National Geographic are prevention and precision medicine.  Today most of us have periodic evaluations of our health.  I see my family doctor and cardiologist twice a year at which time they run tests to see how I am doing.  In the future technology will exist that will allow our medical condition to be monitored continually.  When I got my first BiPAP machine it used a chip to record data.  I would have to take it to AlicK’s Home Medical to have it recorded.  My new machine is equipped with Bluetooth Wireless Technology which can transfer information 24/7.

The second important aspect of future medicine is precision medicine.  In the future treatments will be specifically designed for each patient.  Unique treatments will be developed for each person based on their DNA and data analysis.  Dr. Razelle Kurzrock, an oncologist and director of the Moores Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy puts it this way: “You pick the right drugs for each patient based on the tumor profile, not based on a part of the body or based on what type of cancer 100 other people have.  It’s all about that patient sitting in front of me.” (National Geographic, January 2019, p. 48)

Most translations of the opening words of Genesis say “In the beginning God created.”  When I took Hebrew in seminary the professor suggested that the opening words of Genesis could equally be translated “In the beginning of God creating.”  The first translation implies a static world view while the second a dynamic world view.  For me experience would seem to suggest we live in a dynamic world rather than a static one.  In the Book of Revelation the one who sits upon the throne says “See, I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5b)  In Genesis God began a creating process which continues today.

If we want to adequately address the issues facing health care we need to see it not as something static but as something dynamic that is continually changing and advancing.  This is especially true today where each new day brings a new advance and new breakthrough.