Why Doctors Die Differently

The Wall Street Journal recently published an interesting article regarding the choices doctors make at the end of their lives. It conveys ideas consistent with Dr. Terrell's choices at the end of his life.

"It's not something that we like to talk about, but doctors die, too. What's unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared with most Americans, but how little. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care that they could want. But they tend to go serenely and gently.

Doctors don't want to die any more than anyone else does. But they usually have talked about the limits of modern medicine with their families. They want to make sure that, when the time comes, no heroic measures are taken. During their last moments, they know, for instance, that they don't want someone breaking their ribs by performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (which is what happens when CPR is done right)."

Read the full article here.

Discerning Charity

1 Timothy 5:3-13 (3) Honor widows who are really widows. (4) But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God. (5) Now she who is really a widow, and left alone, trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. (6) But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. (7) And these things command, that they may be blameless. (8) But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 

(9) Do not let a widow under sixty years old be taken into the number, and not unless she has been the wife of one man, (10) well reported for good works: if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work.  

(11) But refuse the younger widows; for when they have begun to grow wanton against Christ, they desire to marry, (12) having condemnation because they have cast off their first faith. (13) And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.

The principle is that charity is actually difficult to do with discernment, and it must be discerning. Throwing money at a problem can make it worse. The attitude of service mentioned in verse 10 is premiere.

From the Bookshelf

The Colony is a history of the large leper colony from its inception in 1866 up through the present. It is not a pretty story. Anyone entertaining the benefits of a politically managed medical enterprise will find no comfort here. These exiled unfortunates suffered from pillage, rape, neglect, malnutrition, violence, and exposure. Slapdash diagnosis by government-hired doctors resulted in perhaps a majority not even having the disease for which they were expelled from mainstream society.

Those lepers who fared best were those who were able to exert some influence over their treatment through outside contacts or financial resources. Those who had neither, the majority, were at the often inadequate mercy of the government.

Read more of Dr. Terrell's book review here.

What is Truth?

The special revelation of God in His Scripture is unique. At our peril did we as a culture lead the world into a divorce of our observations of the material world from the revealed Word of God. Experiential observations must be openly linked with revelation to be rightly useful. To separate the two is to pretend that we can live without God. Remember Eve’s empirical approach to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Gen. 3:6. Eve was living by a reason separated from revelation; she wanted to live by her senses unbound by God’s word. Observation and reason were separable from revelation, she thought.

Psalm 119:160: “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.” There is nothing in all of science of which this statement can be made. What is truth? Truth is every word which comes from the mouth of God. All of our other truths are derivative, partial, fallible. Not one of them can stand alongside revelation. Do not support your culture in thinking that they can be. As you have opportunity and standing to do so, challenge those who do, beginning in the house of faith. None of us should ask Pontius Pilate’s question with his attitude, expecting that there is no answer, or that we can determine the answer with our ears and eyes and reason alone. Use logic, yes. Use as accurate observations as you can, yes. But give the world Scripture, and link it with logic and observations.


Excerpt from "What is Truth?"

The Prudence of Medical Insurance

For a while, I developed a positive hatred of all medical insurance, and invested it with a large share of blame for what ails American medicine. Many bible passages, however, strongly support the idea of insurance as a good idea. Proverbs 27:12 states, "The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."

Though we cannot predict it in detail, illness is virtually certain to strike each of us at some time in our life. Medical insurance can provide a kind of refuge, if we are willing to foresee probable illness. Provision for the foreseeable future is also counseled in Proverbs 30:25: "Ants are the creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer." The arrival of the seasons is more predictable than the arrival of illness, but the two are comparable.

Proverbs 6:6 commends us to "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest." Our responsibility to provide for our household is explicit in I Tim. 5:8: "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel." It is reasonable to include medical care among the expected provision. John 19:26, 27 records Jesus' provision for His mother.

Medical care cannot easily be stored by individuals, but participation in an insurance program can perform the same function; one is "storing" a fund to be expended on anticipated future services. Proverbs 21:20 states: "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has." Clearly, something can be set aside for future exigencies, rather than devoured foolishly.


Excerpt from "Ethical Issues in Medical Insurance"

In Memory

Today, February 2nd, 2012, is the third anniversary of Dr. Terrell's death. At his funeral, four men who had known him spoke of his legacy. Dr. Rob Maddox spoke the following words:


Dr. Terrell was a man of intensity, of intense love. He had an intense love for his God, whom He knew personally. He loved God and he loved God’s Word, and he wanted others to share that love. He was a dedicated student of God’s Word.

Dr. Terrell was a man of intense love for his family. He loved his wife and his children, and they sit here today as evidence of that love. He reared his children in the fear of God, and they are all successful in their walk with Jesus and in their accomplishments.

Dr. Terrell was a man of intense love for his work. He loved teaching and he loved practicing medicine. He was intense in his peculiar approach to the limitations of medicine, as many here can attest to.

He was a man of intense love for his State [South Carolina], for his boat and the sea, for his palms and citrus. On our last trip together last year, we stopped to visit a man in Louisiana with a large selection of citrus. He examined every leaf and every genealogy of those citrus trees.

But Dr. Terrell was also a man intense in his disdain, not for people but for false ideas. He disdained false views of medicine particularly. He restrained himself, but woe to the opponent who failed to notice the rising redness appear above his collar to cover his whole face, until he exploded with the attack, setting that barb right in the center of the false argument.

Dr. Terrell had achieved a rare sense of peace about his work. He understood for years what I have only begun to understand: that medicine is no source of truth, that we are very limited in what we can do for a suffering person. He arrived at this conclusion because he was not content to limit his understanding of the good news of salvation to its initial acceptance but sought to bring every thought captive to Christ. He wanted to hear how God’s Word governed our life and work. He bemoaned preaching that failed to spur us to better works and understanding.

I had thought to read or sing to you Psalm 90, a Psalm we discussed much for its implications for medicine. But as that has already been read, I will read Ps 15.

 LORD, who may abide in Your tabernacle?
         Who may dwell in Your holy hill?        
 He who walks uprightly,
         And works righteousness,
         And speaks the truth in his heart;
 He who does not backbite with his tongue,
         Nor does evil to his neighbor,
         Nor does he take up a reproach against his friend;
 In whose eyes a vile person is despised,
         But he honors those who fear the LORD;
         He who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
 He who does not put out his money at usury,
         Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.
         He who does these things shall never be moved.

Dr. Terrell was an immovable man.