Many young physicians in training have asked me, quietly or by e-mail, “Is it possible to be a Christian and practice emergency medicine?” I think that they ask a good question, and likely for good reasons.
In their rotations, they have witnessed, first hand, life in the ER. They are uncertain, perhaps, because they see the frustration that boils over in the words and actions of otherwise compassionate and caring doctors and nurses. They hear the bitterness and sarcasm, the profanity, the unkind words spoken behind the glass window that separates professional from patient.
They also see, hear, touch — and often smell — the humanity that pours through the doors of trauma centers, academic emergency departments, community ERs and all the rest. There is suffering and loss, and the long, piercing wail of the bereaved down the hall, receiving the worst news of all. They experience the addicted, the drug seeker who will tell any lie, contrive any store to get the pill or injection he or she so needs and desires. They witness the poverty and need, the hungry, empty eyes of neglected children. The may witness, or experience, the explosive violence, and cruelty of the drunk, the criminal, the wounded. In such a place, between suffering patients and suffering staff, what young, wide-eyed Christian wouldn’t ask, “Dr. Leap, is it possible to keep your faith and work in the emergency department?”
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