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AudioVerse

John Shin

The Ultimate Match - Knowing God’s Will in Choosing a Medical Specialty and Residency

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your Sabbath.

We thank you for this beautiful time where we can set aside the concerns of the world, the studies, and just focus on you.

And tonight, Lord, we ask to hear a word from you.

I ask that you put your message in my mouth.

And I ask that you drive it home into the hearts of those who are sitting here and speak to them individually the message that you want them to hear.

All these things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

So when Shannon asked me if I'd be willing to come and speak during this time, I really wanted to do everything I could to accept the request because I know that this time of year is a time of great decision for many people.

For the third years, You guys are kind of honing down what your specialty interest is so that you can set your fourth year schedules.

For the fourth years, you are coming to the tail end of your residency interviews if you haven't already finished, and The rank list is looming large ahead with the match right around the corner.

And for the first and second years, you guys are busy hitting the books and you guys are wondering amidst all these studies, will a doctor come out on the other end of it somehow?

So everyone, and for second years, you know, step 1 is always that 300-pound gorilla that's always in the corner of your mind, looming ahead.

So it's a lot of decisions, a lot of prayers going on.

So I think it's a pivotal time for us to talk about, in the midst of all of this chaos, How do we discern God's will in all of it and separate that from our will?

I think early on, the most important question that any med student can ask himself or herself is what specialty does God want me to go into, right?

And it's such an important question that's going to shape your entire career.

However, if you think about it, you will never in your life make a more uninformed decision than what specialty you should go into.

Because aside from basically the stereotypes regarding each field, at least when I was in school, I felt like I was very ignorant about what each specialty entailed.

And for a vast majority of specialties out there, you don't really get exposure to it unless you ask for it as an elective.

And even then, you get such a superficial exposure to it that you're not sure you've seen all aspects of it.

1 bad attending, 1 bad resident could color the experience for you forever and you'll say, well that's not for me.

Another problem is that the system rewards those who make a decision earlier on.

So for those who come into med school saying, my father was an ophthalmologist, my mother was an ophthalmologist, my dog is an ophthalmologist, my sister's an ophthalmologist, I will be an ophthalmologist, that's what I'm gonna go into, I am the eyeball man.

Coming in, I was like, Lord, I wish I knew exactly what I wanted to do, what research I had to do to get there, what checkboxes I needed to mark, and just have 1 straight shot path into my specialty, never looking back, feeling fulfilled all the way.

But for me, when I came into med school, if you asked me, John, what do you want to do?

I would have told you, I want to be a doctor.

Let's talk about step 1 first, and then come back and ask me what kind of doctor I want to be.

I wasn't going to go into internal medicine.

But everything else, I was like, is open.

You know, the issue with the fact that the system rewards you the earlier you make your decision, the problem with that is that it increases the odds that you'll make a bad decision.

So I have a, in residency I had a friend who was actually coming from an ortho program in Seattle, where he did 3 years of ortho residency and decided 1 morning, this is not for me.

And then so he rematched and came into internal medicine.

And I was like, wow, how painful is that, right?

But the sooner you make a decision, the more likely that you'll be making an uninformed 1 and a bad 1.

So after deciding on a specialty, you know, surgery, no surgery, and then what subspecialty within that, The next most important question you'll ask yourself is which residency program is right for me?

So when I was researching residency programs, I was completely overwhelmed because There's so many programs out there in so many different locations.

And if I was ignorant about medical specialties, I was even more ignorant about residency programs.

And it doesn't help that all of their websites say exactly the same thing, right?

They all deliver a compassionate patient-centered care through a commitment to research and educational excellence and so on and so forth.

But other than the reputations that the programs have, I know nothing.

And that the reputations themselves aren't really accurate in terms of giving you a full picture of what it's like.

This is further complicated, I think, when you're a Christian, because you want God to lead the whole process, right?

And so even if you decide on a specialty and a residency, how can you be really sure that those are God's choices for you?

And that's what we're here to discuss tonight.

Now, after all the interviewing is done, and you say you're going to leave the match in God's hands, you still have that step of ordering the rank list, right?

And that plays a crucial role in how the match process shakes out.

So how can you be sure that your rank list reflects God's will?

So wouldn't it be nice if God could just speak to you out of a cloud and say, I want you to go into this specialty, and this is the residency program I've chosen for you.

You don't need to interview anywhere else.

That's it." Wouldn't that answer a lot of questions?

If he spoke to you from a burning bush or out of a cloud 1 day and just told you that, Why keep us in the dark for so long and let us flail around with a huge risk of making the wrong decision?

You know, if God spoke to me the way he spoke to Moses back in the day, I tell him, I could have the same faith that Moses had in you if you spoke to me face to face like a friend, but if you don't do that how can you hold it against me if I tell you that your voice is indistinct in my life?

So then the first question we need to ask ourselves is, is it even possible to hear the voice of God in your life?

Is it possible to hear the voice of God in your life?

Is that something that you've accepted for yourself to say, this is truth, this is fact?

There was a comedian named Lily Tomlin and she said, why is it that when we speak to God, we're said to be praying, but when God speaks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?

It's an interesting statement because maybe the biggest issue at hand is not that God doesn't speak to us, but that we don't really expect to hear an answer from him.

John chapter 10 verses 1 through 5 says, truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep but climbs up some other way.

He is a thief and a robber but he who enters the door who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.

To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

A stranger they simply will not follow but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." So, did you catch that?

His sheep follow him because they know his voice and he calls them by name.

So what the Bible says is that not only is it possible to hear the voice of God in your life, but that if you call yourself a Christian, it is imperative that you hear and recognize His voice in your life.

So how do we hear the voice of God in our lives?

Well, a good place to start is to look at what we see of His revealed word and His will in his written word.

So let's look at some scripture texts here.

And just so you know, because this is a room full of med students, you don't need to take notes.

I will give a copy of my notes to Shannon, and she can email that out to anyone who wants it.

It has an outline of everything I'm going to cover, along with the recordings if you want to go back and listen to it.

But I just want you to listen to these texts, and I want you to listen for the common thread that unites all of these verses that talk about God's will.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God." Colossians 1, 9-10, For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

This applies to all peoples in all times, in all countries, in all ages, in all contexts.

This is the will of God, blanket statement for humanity, your sanctification.

So it comes from the Greek root word to sanctify, that Greek word.

It's the same word, the root that we use for a sanctuary.

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The Ultimate Match - Knowing God’s Will in Choosing a Medical Specialty and Residency

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