AMEN 2013: Following the Leader

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Mark Finley

John Osborn

Remote Area Medical: Volunteers Mobilizing Healthcare & Conference Summary

But I'm here tonight in part because earlier this year, several of your members infiltrated several of your members infiltrated 1 of our RAM clinics.

And the main purpose of RAM was to provide medical and dental care to people in remote areas that didn't have access.

Our first RAM clinic was to Mexico, a little tiny village there, and a bunch of physicians and dentists climbed in a rented van and drove down from Knoxville.

The idea was to practice for these by doing some clinics in the rural areas around Tennessee.

And come to find out, there was as much need in Tennessee and Virginia and around us as there is overseas.

The founder of RAM was a guy named or is a guy named Stan Brock and you probably would maybe remember him better from this.

Stan was the original co-star of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

I graduated from dental school in 1988 and went to practice in a small town north of Knoxville called Maynardville.

We had a lot of patients who are Medicaid patients.

I noticed that the parents would bring in the kids and they'd sit over in the corner and they'd cover their mouth because when they'd remove their hand they'd have rotten teeth.

And so as a new dentist with student loans and practice loans, there wasn't any way to treat them free of charge forever.

So the solution came when Stan Brock called me at the office and told me about RAM and asked me to volunteer.

That weekend, 2 guys in a pickup truck showed up with 3 old dental chairs and loaded them into the basement of the health department and we spent the next 2 days extracting teeth.

Several people have asked me what we were going to do now that the Affordable Care Act is in place, that we would have nothing left to do.

And so 1 of our RAM volunteers had this to say about that.

His name is Bob Fiella, and he's president of the American Dental Association.

The President of the American Dental Association.

So that patients have a sustainable solution long term.

All these years later, people are still losing teeth in these mountains.

I would love to have seen the Affordable Care Act include dentistry for adults, but it didn't.

So states are faced with really tough decisions.

The states that are looking to expand Medicaid are looking at expanding Medicaid for adults and dental benefits for adults, and it's a very expensive proposition.

A lot of these folks are working but without access to dental care.

Now the Affordable Care Act has expanded Medicaid almost 84% in the next 5 years for adults.

It's entirely bypassed the adult population for dental needs.

This dental divide can't be treated to the point where it doesn't exist.

The thing that the Affordable Care Act will do, which would be very helpful here, is if states do the Medicaid expansion, about 2 3rds of the patients who are here will then be covered for medical care and they can get primary physicians in their own communities and not come.

But it is the case that even in Medicaid, We do not have the access to dental care that we should.

Dentistry access, the number of dentists we train, the number of dentists who are in communities like this, it's not enough.

So we ought to be looking at reforms to Medicaid to expand dentistry, and we ought to be.

And so remote area medical serves as a bridge over the gap of the fractured health care access and the ACA does not change this.

We do a lot of clinics and when I was preparing for this I looked back at old pictures and I think I probably have 15 or 20, 000.

This is the 1 that my new friends invaded in the Knoxville Jacobs building.

1 of the great things about doing these clinics is you meet some really neat people and develop lifelong friendships.

We don't just do it in auditoriums, we also do it in sports stadiums.

Sometimes we have to go to where the patient is.

This is under the bridge in Knoxville and there are several families living there without any access and it was about 20 degrees that day.

Another outdoor clinic that we do is what you're seeing here.

If you look in the background, the dark stripe that looks like a road and the 1 below it that kind of looks like a wall, that's sort of what it is.

That's the Bristol Motor Speedway, and we do a clinic there every year.

This is a little village called Atka, Alaska, and it's out in the Bering Sea, 1 of the Aleutian Islands.

And we got a call, and the only way to get dental care there is to ship in a dentist and his equipment.

And the weather is so unpredictable that sometimes the plane has to be turned away.

And the last dentist that had been there had been 3 years ago.

So he sat there and then the next plane didn't come in and the next plane didn't come in.

And the only thing to do on this island is to chase a reindeer.

So here's another shot of it and the big blue-green building in the in the middles where we worked it was the rec center.

So we just set up our clinic right there on the pool table.

This is actually the five-year anniversary of Katrina.

We were there twice before that, and in fact, Ram was on the ground before FEMA when Katrina happened.

The dentist and his assistant are so happy and the patient's going, You aren't going to hurt me, are you?

This was the line at the first Katrina clinic that we did.

And even at the Knoxville Clinic, you see long lines.

People get there at 10 o'clock at night, the night before, to get a number to get seen.

Recently, 5 or so years ago, we had the opportunity to buy a transporter for our equipment.

The American Le Mans series Mazda factory team was retiring.

And so we were able to purchase this at a great discount.

The top layer where they kept the cars, we're able to store 50 portable dental units.

And in the downstairs, We have eyeglass labs that can make up to 300 pairs of glasses a day.

So what we do with RAM is we provide professionals a way to do what they want to do, a way to help people.

These are completely set up by RAM and organized by RAM and the dentist and physicians have to show up and work, 45% of attendees haven't seen the dentist in 5 years or more.

And this is a cute picture of the kid, but in reality, these are the people that we see.

So when Ram shows up and unloads all the equipment, this is kind of what it looks in the extraction area.

As you might think, we're pretty good at extractions.

Everybody wants to do them because you can get in there and you remove the tooth and everybody goes home happy.

We're not so good at replacing them until recently.

Making a denture is a long drawn out process.

There's a lot of manual labor, a lot of pouring things up and waiting.

So it's not really practical because we're in and out in 2 or 3 days.

But recently, 1 of our volunteers has invented a denture system that you can actually make a set of dentures.

It's a pretty nice set in about 20 minutes an arch.

Now these 2 have never been to 1 of our RAM clinics, but If they had, they might leave looking like that.

Des Cummings

The Patient Experience 1

I have been related to AMEN in more ways than 1 for the last 9 years.

And I remember when we had our first meeting at Cahutta Springs, a small group of physicians and dentists met together to dream about an organization that would provide spiritual care, nurture for physicians and dentists that would focus particularly on how Christ could be made known in the marketplace and how Jesus could be exalted in offices, how physical, mental, and spiritual care could be integrated, And also how busy physicians and dentists could be guided on mission trips and how mission trips could be planned for them.

And to see what has happened over the last 9 years with the way God has blessed this organization is really quite remarkable.

Conferences on the East Coast and on the West Coast, some of those conferences, particularly on the West Coast with the medical students from Loma Linda, having 400 or 500 participants.

And I believe that AMEN's destiny is brighter in the future than it has been in the past, that God will continue to bless the organization, that it will continue to grow as it stays faithful to its purpose.

I was talking to Elder Wilson, our General Conference President, on the phone today and shared with him that I would be here with you tonight.

And he said to me, he said, be sure to tell the Amen Group how we deeply appreciate their work.

These physicians who day by day are interfacing with the patients, how they're praying with them, how they're sharing Christ with them.

And They're such a part of the mission of the church.

So on behalf of Elder Wilson, I want to thank you for the ministry that you have.

And I really use that word advisedly because it is ministry.

You are ministering for Christ day by day for the kingdom of God.

So I know that the Lord is going to richly and continue to bless your ministry as you continue it for Jesus.

Well, that was a timer that told me to start preaching.

We just really desire tonight, as we are launching into this patient experience, we really desire to uplift Jesus, to see how he would interact with patients.

Open our eyes, encourage our hearts, lead us deeper in our knowledge of you, grant to us a clearer understanding of what it means to minister like Christ.

Tonight we begin a series of presentations on the patient experience.

We're going to divide our presentations really into 2 parts.

First, I'll share a spiritual principle and we'll look at a principle in the life of Jesus.

That principle will largely come from John the fourth chapter And so I'll make really 4 presentations on John chapter 4.

We'll look at Jesus accepting the assignment, Jesus wearied at the well, Jesus ministering to deeper needs, and Jesus making an eternal offer.

Now as I unfold or unpack a spiritual principle, then Des will come up and say, how does this apply in a contemporary 21st century setting?

How do you apply this in a dental office?

How do you apply this in a medical office?

How do you apply this in a hospital setting?

Tomorrow morning particularly we will have a breakout session, at least 1 of them, maybe 2 of them, where we reflect on some of these principles and we wrestle with some of the questions.

In each presentation, we'll unfold eternal principles in the light of evidence-based science with applications for a 21st century clinical setting.

Now, it's our desire that this series will deepen our understanding of God's purpose, his calling as medical professionals, and really will make an impact in our practices.

I invite you, if you have your Bibles, to take them and turn to John chapter 4.

In the fourth chapter of the book of John, Jesus shares with us eternal principles of ministering as medical missionaries in comprehensive medical evangelism in the 21st century.

We're gonna look at John 4, verses 1 to 5 tonight, and then the morning we'll start with verse 6.

So if you have your Bible, let's start with John 4.

We're going to look there, beginning with verse 1.

Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee.

Jesus did not want any competition in his ministry with another worker.

And when Jesus sensed that the temperature was getting a little high Because of competition over success, rather than be involved in that conflict, Jesus left the scene to minister in a different area, because for Jesus, relationships were important.

For Jesus, Christianity is manifest in loving relationships.

All doctrine rightly understood and practically applied leads to loving relationships.

And so Jesus understood that very clearly so he left.

But it is the next 2 verses that I want to take a very serious look at with you.

Verse 3, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee, but he needed to go to Samaria.

Now the question is, why did Jesus need to go to Samaria?

And it's that question that we want to unpack tonight.

Now some commentators say the reason he needed to go to Samaria, go through Samaria on the way to Galilee is there was no other way there.

The commentators who say that have not visited Israel.

In fact, if you're in Jerusalem, You can travel the 21 miles down to Jericho, cross the Jordan, and go up what we would say now on the Jordanian side.

In those days, you'd cross the Jordan and miss Samaria altogether.

Probably would take you 4 to 5 days by foot rather than the shorter way through Samaria.

So the idea that there was no other way just doesn't hold water.

Some say that Jesus wanted to get there quickly so he went through Samaria.

It is true, but it seems to me that that argument demeans the very essence of who Jesus was.

Jesus didn't merely do things because he wanted to do something quickly.

The third reason some people say, which is maybe closer to the truth, but I still don't think it's there.

They say, well, Jesus knew that the woman at the well was there and he wanted to meet her.

I think it's quite speculative because in his humanity, Did he really know that that woman was going to be there that day?

I think this phrase, and when you read it in the original language in verse 4, it says he needed to go through Samaria.

In the Greek it said it was necessary for him to go through Samaria.

There's another version, it's really even more emphatic in the Greek.

In other words, he didn't have an alternative.

Do we get any clues in John 3 after the experience with Nicodemus in why Jesus possibly had to go through Samaria.

This to me unpacks an eternal truth about Jesus' ministry that is applicable to our own ministries.

And it helps us to understand this expression in John 4, verse 4, he needed to go through Samaria.

If you look back at John 3, verse 34 and 35, it says, for him whom God has sent speaks the words of God.

For God does not give the Spirit by measure.

The Father loves the Son, has given all things into his hand.

Jesus was totally committed to the Father's will.

And the reason he had to go through Samaria was because he sensed in his soul, he sensed in his spirit, he sensed in his inward being that this was part of the divine purpose.

Jesus didn't fully understand the divine purpose.

He didn't fully understand he was going to meet the woman at Samaria.

He didn't fully comprehend the significance of the moment.

But this he knew, the Spirit was leading him through Samaria.

This he knew, that going through Samaria was part of an overall divine purpose for his life.

He traveled through Samaria because he had an inner sense that he is being directed by God.

He may have not understood all the reasons, but he had such a deep relationship with God that he had an inner sense of daily divine guidance.

He went because he had a divine summons to go.

Ellen White makes a fascinating statement about Jesus in Desire of Ages page 208.

It's a troubling statement In fact, a difficult statement for us to understand fully.

She says, the Son of God was so surrendered to the Father's will and dependent upon His power, so utterly was Jesus emptied of self that he made no plans for himself.

Organized physicians and dentists, it seems a little strange.

And day by day the Father unfolded his plans.

The Patient Experience 2a

There are 7 different unspoken requests in the heart and mind of patients.

And when you analyze the encounter that Jesus had at the well, systematically Jesus met every 1 of her unspoken requests.

So before Disney ever did the research for Florida Hospital, 2, 000 years ago, Jesus ministered and answered those questions.

So if you have your Bibles, let's go to John chapter 4.

And we're going to compare the methodology of Jesus in John 4 with the unspoken requests of the woman and we're going to take a look at how they apply to the research that's being done today and then Des is going to come on and share with you how that relates to practice.

Now you recall last evening that we noted the expression and we spent the first 25 minutes on it in John 4 verse 4, Jesus needed to go through Samaria.

We pointed out that he did not need to go through Samaria geographically.

Neither did he need to go through Samaria because it was the quickest way to Galilee.

Neither did he go through Samaria because he divinely knew he was gonna meet the woman there, we're not sure about that.

He needed to go through Samaria because based on John 3, verse 34, for he whom God sent speaks the words of God, is Jesus had this purpose-driven life.

Jesus had this sense that he was sent to Samaria by God.

Jesus had this sense inside that the Holy Spirit was leading him to Samaria.

And he could not deny that inner conviction of the spirit.

He could not deny that inner leading, that inner prompting of the spirit.

As you and I get up in the morning, what keeps us from burnout in a people profession?

What keeps us when the waiting room is full and We're already 30 minutes behind in the schedule.

What keeps us from mental, physical, emotional exhaustion?

There is 1 thing that helps to contribute to keeping us from that, and it is this inner sense that we are here by the divine decree of God.

It is that inner sense that the work of a physician, the work of a dentist, the work of a healthcare provider is not a profession but it's a calling.

That inner sense of purpose, direction, and calling.

You are divinely summoned for a sacred work.

Now let's look at a clinical analysis of Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well and attempt to discover the 7 unspoken requests in the part of every patient.

John 4, we're looking there beginning at John 4 verse 7.

Jesus is sitting by the side of the well, he's wearied, a stranger shows up.

We're going to come back and look at verse 6 in the last session of the day intentionally.

And in verse 7 it says, a woman of Samaria came to draw water and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink.

Often in the Bible, very short expressions are pregnant and loaded with meaning.

It was not simply what Jesus said, it was the fact that he said.

It was not only his content, but it was his comment.

What flowed through her heart when Jesus said something to her?

It wasn't only what he said, it was her surprise that he was saying anything at all.

When your patients are sitting in the waiting room, Is anybody paying attention to them?

Are they merely a statistic on a daily chart?

When they walk in to the inner sanctum of your office and your nurse has them sitting there.

Do they feel like they're a statistic or a human being?

When you come in and you're already seeing 30, 35, 40 patients a day in some disciplines, If you are in other disciplines that I know that will remain unnamed, you may be seeing 90 patients a day.

Some of you may do a few surgeries, but others of you may have shorter encounters with patients.

Do they feel that you come in and say, now I looked at the chart and this was the problem?

You see, remember the Disney study that Des brought out last night.

Back to Menu

Series

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Following the Lamb

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Remote Area Medical: Volunteers Mobilizing Healthcare & Conference Summary

47m

The Patient Experience 1

59m

The Patient Experience 2a

1h 19m

The Patient Experience 2b

1h

Following the Lamb

48m

Healing the Right Arm

25m

Iron Heart

33m

Final Breakthroughs

1h

AMEN Short-term Missions

52m

Sound Doctrine