At a meeting of a mission network that I helped to convene many years ago, we were looking at how medical mission work could measure and manage its impact on the physical and spiritual health of the communities it served. A couple chatted to me in the coffee break, telling...
key points Clinical errors happen to almost all doctors and nurses at some point in our careers. How those errors are handled by managers and colleagues has a huge impact on the well being and career of the person who has made the error. Workplace and team culture is the main predictor...
When Marcus Evans quit his governorship of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in February this year, it was over the 'climate of fear' and attempts to 'dismiss or undermine' concerns being raised by its own clinicians. While many of his claims are contested, an independent report backed up some...
Two of the besetting sins of humanity are found in our attitudes to the past and the future. At one extreme we cling to the past, decrying the present and fearing the future; the cry of our heart is 'Things are not what they used to be!' At the other,...
W hen God first spoke to him out of the burning bush, Moses' simple reply was 'Here I am' (Exodus 3:4). In Hebrew the word is [hineini]. It is with the same word that a young Samuel responded when he thought that Eli, rather than God was calling him in...
'If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.' (1) T here is great power in God's people coming...
W hen the World Medical Association (WMA) was formed in the 1940s, it was as an ethical bulwark against the extremes of Nazi medicine. It has subsequently maintained a strong support for freedom of conscience and active opposition to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. (1) However, at the WMA General...
key points For most of the history of the West health and social care has been the preserve of family, church and local community. As healthcare has become professionalised there has been a loss of social solidarity and the marginalisation of vocation. With the NHS facing a mounting crisis of resources, Christians are...
You can hardly have missed the coverage of the 70th birthday of Britain's National Health Service (NHS) in early July (unless you are not based in the UK, in which case, bear with us). (1) As Andrew Fergusson explains in more detail in his article in this edition, the advent of...
Events in the Middle East over the last few years have challenged the long-held belief that medical services are neutrals and not to be attacked by either side. In Syria, as the civil war has headed towards its climax, bombing of hospitals has become alarmingly frequent. (1) In Yemen, a...
