My novels always include faith based issues. I refuse to preach but the Message must be imbedded in my stories. With regard to my character, Dr. Jack Merchant, a radiologist who also consults with the coroner, how does a person of faith deal with death?

I see death every day. I’m not a medical examiner. I am a radiologist. I interpret imaging studies every day I work. On some days, I might go through up to 250 patients and their studies. While I don’t see a dead patient, at least rarely, I see the death sentence right in front of me on the study. It might be a lung cancer, or diffuse metastatic cancer throughout the body, or a large infiltrating tumor in a woman’s breast. It might be a dissection in the aorta (deadly if not treated immediately) or a massive hemorrhage in the brain with the blood devastating and destroying viable brain tissue. I might not see death at the moment. But I see it coming and often soon.

Early on in my training, I recall a young boy with multiple skull fractures. I was a student at that point and when I found out what had been done to this child to cause such damage, I almost quit medicine! Not only do I see impending death, I see the evil that lives in the hearts of all people.

How do I deal with these realities?

First, such horrific outcomes are rare. I would estimate about 10% of the cases I read every day have such a possible deadly outcome at that moment in time. There are LOTS of good news, hope, and treatable diseases. I thrive on these cases!

Second, my personal journey in my career in medicine began with a calling from God to enter the field of medicine. The story is too long for today’s post but perhaps one day I will share it. It has become a humbling experience to realize I may be the answer to someone’s prayer. I would never be in the position to help diagnose, and sometimes treat, patients as a radiologist if I had not heard and responded to the Call. This is foundational for me and continues to give me strength and endurance in the face of death.

Third, I do not take it home with me. I started out in internal medicine. In that field the pain and suffering were right in front of me in the flesh. With radiology, there is some separation. Finding this field, again because of God’s direction, led me to realize it fit my empathic personality much better. Nevertheless, I discovered Walt Disney World shortly after completing my internship in internal medicine. That internship year was the most dehumanizing, destructive experience of my life. Walking into the Magic Kingdom provided an enthralling and all encompassing escape from the daily walk among sick and dying patients. I needed that renewal. However, my strongest renewal occurs from my faith.

Being a hospital based physician, I cannot share my faith or be sanctioned for proselytizing. However, if a patient opens the door to their own personal faith, I walk through fully and enthusiastically. I live for such moments!

So, how about Dr. Jack Merchant? Is he a man of faith? How does he deal with death, not only in his practice, but as a consultant to the medical examiner? The answer to that question is the substance of his journey in the current stories and the stories to come. He starts out with a faint connection to the divine and must decide how deeply to commit himself to faith. Part of his journey through the valley of the shadow of death is story I will tell. Be patient. God is not finished with Jack yet!