Moral Dilemmas

I'm sure we all encounter moral dilemmas from time to time. I was recently discussing with friends one of my frequent dilemmas and it reminded me of a very important lesson I have learned. It is one of those lessons that never stops challenging you. My dilemmas often come when I am at work and usually always have to do with my patients who in the medical world we define as the "non-compliant." They are often simple, actually rather friendly folk, who unfortunately have a very different view of medicine than myself. They are the type to commonly make the comment, "This is why I never come to the doctor...when you come you just find out all the things that are wrong and you leave with all these pills." There is no real concept of preventative medicine in their minds...only the kind that gives you bad news and hassles. At any rate I often run into moral dilemmas with them. A perfect example is the 55 year old man who has already had 2 heart attacks, continues to smoke a pack a day (while on oxygen!!), has high cholesterol but would never change his diet, and snickers when I ask him if I can ask him a few questions. As I sit and listen to this middle age man tell me he just wants his pills and then he can leave because he doesn't like being here anyway I'm tempted sometimes to just let him have it his way. "Ok, right," I say in my mind, "I'll just give you refills on these three meds for the entire next year before I ask you all the questions I need to, do a complete exam, and review your record to see what might be missing." That would make it all easy and then I can get onto other things. But I know that patients like this often need a lot of work and a few simple questions might just save their life....if I want to take the time to ask. I'm tempted to think, "Well, if you really don't care about your health or give it any time...why really should I?" "Should I work harder than you to make things straight when many of your conditions could potentially have been prevented in the first place?"

....And then I remember that lesson. The rational goes something like this...had Christ in considering our sins and recongnizing that we were an ungreatful, stubborn, and non-compliant people felt that we not worth saving we would never stand a chance because we are unable to merit anything that could attain for us salvation. So while I may be tempted to not treat the said above patient with the same gentleness, care, and thoroughness as all my other patients I have to remember that Christ treats us all the same regardless of how ugly we are. We are all on the same footing and deserve absolutely nothing!

I am happy to say I retain a clear conscience and have yet to let these temptations compromise the care I give my patients but I will say it is some times a daily challenge to continue to give, listen, ask, wait, smile, and take yet even more time that I "don't" have for those, like myself, who are so unworthy.