God's image

Why should anybody bother to practice medicine? When you think about it, even the best medicine available is just a stop-gap effort. Barring Christ's return, all my patients will die. So why bother?

One motivation is humanitarianism. You see suffering, you feel that as a fellow human being, you should do something to alleviate that suffering. No problem with that, but humanitarianism can only take you so far. When it's not convenient, or you've reached you "quota" of doing good, then self interest trumps humanitarianism.

Another motive is profit. People will give their last dollar to get well. Why not provide your patient a good service and expect to be paid sufficiently so that you can have a reasonable living? The problem is determining what is "reasonable." What standard should we use? American doctors have gained a reputation as being overly greedy, and overly flashy in their consumption.

For me, there can be only one absolute that keeps me going in medicine, especially missionary medicine. Each person on the face of this earth bears the image of the Creator. Says Genesis, God created us in His image. It may not be so obvious that this is true, because sin has highly degraded our physical and spiritual beings. What I am doing as a medical practitioner is to try to restore this image to its original glory. No, I can't accomplish this with pills and potions, but perhaps I can reverse or control a process of bodily decay, and perhaps my patient will recognize this as God's provision for them.

God's ultimate plan for His children is to restore them to the glorious state in which He created Adam and Eve. When, in the relatively rare situation, medicine completely cures a condition, this is a foretaste of what God is going to do in the complete restoration to come at Christ's appearing. I can't wait to be out of a job when He comes.