My thoughts on Christians who want to do medicine

So at my farewell party, I was asked, "What do I think about Christians who want to do medicine?", and I gave an answer, of sorts, in the limited time. The context behind the question is that I had been studying medical science for the past three years with the intention of transferring into medicine, as I mentioned in my first vlog. I've been meaning to re-answer the question better for a while, but I haven't gotten around to it till now. Well, from now on, my answer will be published here for all to read.

For those who are still wondering why anyone would care about my answer to such a question, let me affirm that it is a very appropriate question to ask me for a number of reasons. For those who aren't wondering, feel free to skip my this paragraph and get to my answer to the question in the next paragraph.

Firstly, the people who asked me that question are aware of how long I've wanted to get into medicine. The first conscious decision to pursue medicine I recall was in year 9, but my mum insists that I've been telling her I wanted to become a doctor ever since primary school.

Secondly, many of my friends are also aware how much preparation I'd done until two years ago, when I dropped my pursuit. I've gotten to know and speak with a paediatric cardiologist from church and my pastor who was formerly a practicing GP, not to mention various friends currently studying medicine at various universities across Australia. Needless to say, in my pursuit of medicine I was under no illusion as to the challenges that await anyone who embarks on the journey to become a medical practitioner. I'll spare the details here; they're not the main reason I wrote this post.

Thirdly, my friends and family can attest to the motivations I had for doing medicine. Med is one of those occupations that has the propensity to not just make you a living, but to go so far as to consume you and become your living. This is known more commonly around Christian circles as idolatry: taking any part of creation which is inherently good, and making it the meaning of your life. There are admittedly unavoidable elements in medical practice that result in such a lifestyle, namely work load, work hours, and being on call, but the arguably stronger influencing factors are all too commonly riches, respect, and renown. Of course, scarce few will ever admit any of these to contribute to their motivation for medicine, but the experience of myself and others who've hung around the medial field long enough would say otherwise. Would you expect medical-practitioners-in-training to approach their studies with an attitude of "What do I need to pass this course?" or instead one of "How can I best equip myself now for the people I will be treating in the future?"? The answer may (or may not) surprise you. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad for the existence of the minority who do study their subject content to the best of their ability for the sake of their future patients. But all too sadly, the majority of the med cohort still look for shortcuts in their studies where they can get away with it, seemingly unconcerned about how that will affect their medical competency in the future. Having said all that, I am all too aware that the elevated social status simply comes with being in a profession responsible for handling human lives, and that the seemingly high income is not worth the stress and hardship endured to earn it - I may as well pursue investment banking if it were for the money. What drove me personally toward medicine from the beginning was a combination of my love of learning, love of challenges, love of the medical sciences, and love of helping people. If I were currently studying medicine, and I explained my motivations as such, you could be forgiven for doubting my truthfulness, but since I'm no longer pursuing medicine, nothing stops me from sharing my actual, truthful motivation for doing medicine.

So having explained my background, I hope you see why I want to answer the question well. I can speak on a profession fraught with men (and women probably) of impure conscious and subconscious motives, intermingling the desires and expectations for oneself with the desires and expectations from others (*coughasianparentscough*), as an informed former pursuant of the same profession, responding with the (Christian) insight of one simultaneously looking inward, and looking outward at the issue.

So I arrive at my answer to the question, "What do I think about Christians who want to do medicine?". If you are a Christian who is not yet a practicing doctor nor already studying a medical degree, my answer to you would be a short, simple "Don't do it*." My reasoning is simple: it's not worth the time and energy sacrifice. Keep in mind that this post is not targeted at people who were already practicing doctors or doctors-in-training before they became a Christian*. Medicine easily takes the cake for the longest process in becoming a qualified professional. If you don't seek graduate entry, where not only have you just completed three or four years in an unrelated degree but you still need to sit the gruelling six hour barrier exam (GAMSAT), the undergraduate medical degree is commonly five or six years. After you complete your university degree, you're still only a doctor-in-training until you can pass a barrier exam into medical school for - *shock horror* - further education. That's a grand total of around 10 years of training in order to become a GP, and even longer for a specialist. Embarking on the path to being a doctor is giving away the prime of your life, to gain a job that will occupy what is left of it. It's not a career path for the faint hearted, and in my opinion, not for the Christian either, because of both what you must do and what you can't do as a consequence, as I outlined above. And to reinforce my point, I'll present the objections I've heard in the past and explain my view of those objections.

• Objection #1: "I can serve God by serving people as a doctor." I acknowledge that not everyone uses this as a mere excuse; some Christians genuinely believe this. Even if that's the case, I think that this way of thinking betrays a limited understaing of Christian service. It's good that they want to serve others as a doctor out of a love for God, but I think Christians can serve in better ways. Just think about what the best thing about being a Christian is: resurrection from the dead! Eternal life, forever! (Tautology intended.) The field of medicine might have power to restore people's physical and mental health, but only through the power of the gospel will people receive eternal life. If helping people and serving God is what you want to do, the best form of service as a Christian - rather, the form of service available ONLY to Christians - is the task of sharing the gospel of the Lord Jesus. As a doctor, your duty and your obligation is to treat people's diseases, and your greatest achievement will be to restore, rehabilitate, and maybe resuscitate someone. If you were to instead choose a path in life that gave you more time and reason for gospel ministry, you will be performing the greatest service of all found only in the gospel - the power that can resurrect.

• Objection #2: "I will have many opportunities to spread the gospel, because I meet many people as a doctor." There is a common misconception that the high volume of patient contact a doctor gets equates to many opportunities to share the gospel. In reality, the more patients you have, the less likely you will be sharing the gospel with your patients. It won't be long before you have so many patients, that it will be a challenge to give each and every patient the required medical attention, let alone develop relationships with each of them where you can share the gospel. Most people don't seek nor expect religious conversations with their doctor. The reason they visit you is most probably because they want you to address their health issue, and they either aren't in the mood, or in the right mindset to talk about Jesus. The medical profession is first and foremost a job and not a ministry, so a Christian considering  medicine who don't understand that is either misled, or making a bad excuse.

• Objection #3: "There aren't enough Christians in medicine." or "We need more Christians in medicine." This argument betrays a narrow-mindedness. The statement in itself, is true. I also agree that medicine would be better off if there were more God-fearing people in it. However, it fails to acknowledge that a Christian's first concern should be God's concerns, and God is concerned not just with how many Christians there are in medicine but Christians everywhere. So the main question isn't whether you think there are enough Christians in medicine; the real question is whether God wants or expects you to fill that need. There will always be a need for Christian doctors, but I think that the greatest need will always be for gospel workers - something that hasn't changed since Jesus first said it 2000 years ago (Matthew 9:37). The reality is that Jesus will return soon, and the only thing that matters on that day will be whether you accept the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, or whether you didn't. On that day, those who have repented of their sins will be of far greater importance than those who were treated well medically. Practicing doctors do become Christian, and God is able to use them to tell other doctors about Jesus. If you're concerned about the need for Christian witness but you're not doing medicine yet, use your freedom to find out where the need is greatest, and pray that God might use you to fill it.

• Objection #4: "If there are no Christians in medicine, who will share the gospel with non-Christians in medicine?" This is very similar to the previous objection, but I'm going to approach the question from a different angle. Theoretically, this question makes sense. If I'm advising Christians to not go into medicine, then I'm implying I don't want any Christians to do medicine at all, which is bad advice. Realistically though, how many Christians considering medicine do you expect will read my post, or have the opportunity to be informed of the alternatives in the same way? Not nearly as many Christians who still want to get into med. So don't worry, there will always be Christians in medicine, whether they've thought through the implications or not. However, you have had the chance to read and think about the alternatives, so the bigger question is, what will you do about it?

• Objection #5: "I have a great love and passion for medicine." I assume that whoever says this has done their research into what the job description of being a doctor is, in order to be able to make such a claim. So I'll proceed to answering this objection with that assumption. If you want to do medicine because you truly love it, then I commend your honesty and genuineness. Though I'll also point out that there are also people in this world who have a great love and passion for food, photography, football, knitting, etc., but just because they derive great pleasure from it doesn't mean they make it their main occupation in life. That's why we coined the term "hobby" to talk about things we're passionate about but which we realise are unwise to make our primary purpose in life, for reasons that may vary. So if you're a Christian and you love medicine, that's great! But surely I hope you can also say, if you're a Christian, that you love God? Which out of the two should you prioritise as number one? I hope you would agree that the message of salvation that the gospel brings is much more valuable and important to us than a job in medicine, and so being a Christian should be our metaphorical "full time job", if medicine is to be the metaphorical "hobby". What I mean is that if you're a Christian, you should let your identity as a follower of Christ define and shape your course of life, which means you allow your love and passion for Jesus to help you determine how you should respond to your love and passion for medicine, not the other way around. For me, I knew that I can't help myself but want to tell the world about Jesus, because of what He has accomplished for me and for everyone by dying on the cross and being raised to life again. That has led me to change the course of my life so that I'm free to structure the next 10 years around gospel opportunities, rather than 10 years in medical training. For you, putting your love and passion for God first might well mean becoming a doctor; only you hold the correct answer to that question. My prayer is that the decision you make will be a genuine one, with God's best interest at heart and a desire to see His name be glorified in your speech and your actions.

• Objection #6: "I feel that doing medicine is God's calling in my life." I'd like to explore the idea of receiving a "calling" in life, whether it be for medicine or any other occupation in life, whether church-related or non-church related, paid or unpaid. Usually, those who use the term "calling" to talk about choosing what to do in life are people who haven't properly looked at how the term "calling" is used firstly in the Bible. If you were to read all the New Testament passages relating to the idea of receiving your "calling" from God, you'll notice that a person can only ever potentially receive one calling in life. The only calling that God refers to is our calling to Christ. In other words, calling to become a Christian. These days, there are many options at your disposal for finding every occurrence of a word in the Bible, so you can test my claim for yourself. For the moment, I'll pick 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 to give an example of how God uses the term "calling". Notice how circumcision and uncircumcision are two situations in life that apply to everyone, and neither is better or worse (or matters at all for God), the only important thing is your calling to faith in Jesus. Also, notice how being a slave and being a free man are two very different walks of life that apply to everyone, and not only are we told that both life circumstances are fine, the important thing is being called to Christ. And that all makes sense, because circumcision and being a slave are all earthly matters, which bear no eternal significance. However, whether you have faith in Jesus or not will be the difference between heaven and hell for you for all eternity, and that is the calling we all receive as Christians. So there's no such thing as a calling from God to become a doctor, as much as there is a calling to be a garbage collector, to become a missionary or to stay unmarried; they're all simply different life circumstances that God can call us in, and not a single Christian can ever be said to have a better or worse calling, we are all called to the same faith in Jesus, just under different life circumstances. So when it comes to the question of whether to pursue medicine or not, you are welcome to conclude that doing medicine is the best way you can live out your calling as a Christian, if that's honestly the case for you, but please don't use "calling" as a bad excuse now that you know the significance of the word for Christians.

• Objection #7: "If you don't think Christians should do medicine, then what about engineering, commerce, law, [insert occupation here]?" As I've established in what I'm aware of as an already lengthy blog post, there are many restrictions and temptations for anyone, let alone a Christian, in the field of medicine. I can speak on these things with personal experience, and my insider perspective. With that insight, my conclusion is that if you're a Christian and you're not already doing medicine, than don't go into it because the time and energy sacrifice is not worth it. I do have some thoughts on Christians looking into other professions, but any opinion I have about them is based on presumption and not on actual experience or knowledge of that occupation, so it's not my place to give advice. But if you really want my opinion, I think each profession has its own temptations to watch out for, but no occupation is as unwise of a time and energy investment for a Christian as medicine.

Having said all the above, I don't by any means imply that the better alternative in everyone's case is to apply for a full time paid ministry position. In the same way that it is unhelpful (and probably dangerous) to practice medicine without a genuine heart for it, it is counter-intuitive to enter full time ministry without a personal conviction of its importance. I do not think that full time paid ministry is for everyone, but I do think that not enough Christians think and pray about the prospect of serving in a full time capacity in the first place.

To be totally clear as I wrap up, I have never and I probably never will lose my interest in the field of medicine. It's an area that just naturally happens to intrigue and fascinate me, and there are many reasons for that (which I won't go into now). If for some reason I was forced to become a doctor now, I would happily oblige. (I wish that were possible.) I do respect those who are already in the medical profession, and the contributions they have made - irrespective of their motivations. However, with regards to Christians who are still deciding what they want to do with their lives, I hope I made my reasons clear as to why I would discourage them from choosing medicine, and why I walked away from it myself. What you do with this knowledge is your responsibility, but I pray for the Christians reading this that your decision might be shaped by the Lordship of Jesus. Having shared my thoughts, let me know what your thoughts are.

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*If you are a Christian and already a current medical student or a certified medical practitioner, my answer may not be the same to you. Having said that, my pastor was a doctor before he became a pastor, and I know many others like him who have given up medical practice in exchange for time dedicated to direct Christian ministry, so then again, maybe it could be. And if you're a non-Christian, I suggest you consider becoming a Christian first, then coming back and reading this post ;)

Disclaimer: this blog post was written by a Christian living in Australia, responding to the Australian perception of medicine. There is a possibility that you are from a country other than Australia, where medicine is not as prestigious, in which case my opinion may also not apply. Just replace "medicine" with the dream job in your country, and the rest of my post should make sense.