The Medical World Is Fighting A Major Battle: Who Wins Matters

Neurology Rounds With The Maverick:
Adventures with Patients from the Golden Age of Medicine

Author: Bernard M. Patten, MD

Publisher: Identity Publications, location unknown, 2019

The author’s credentials are “par excellence” – Undergraduate from Columbia College summa cum laude; MD from Columbia University; Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Royal Society of Medicine, Texas Neurological Society, and American Academy of Neurology; and certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Practical work experience too long to list, but Bernard Patten is not shy about telling it to you throughout his book.

In fact, he is anything but shy. This is one of many books he has authored, but the first one I’ve read. His style is bold, taking no prisoners when it comes to arguments, and pulling no punches when it comes to describing situations and events. We could hope he really did not talk like that to patients or colleagues or supervisors – but alas we would be disappointed.  This guy was born a “maverick” and it suited him well throughout his career and beyond as he now takes up writing.

His emphasis throughout the book is “facts” and where there are no facts, there should be no assumptions. He applies this to his field, but also the media, big companies, and medical institutions – with considerable success.

But here’s why Patten wrote the book. He wants this book’s shared knowledge to increase the reader’s intensity and range of experience – for the purpose of examining and clarifying one’s life and the lives of others.  He will have succeeded if after reading it, the reader will be able to decide for themselves, “if it is better for a doctor to function at the junction of art and science and practice medicine NOT as a STRANGER, or is it better for a doctor to enter the survival mode, knuckle under, and muddle through. . . to your detriment. . . Decide: is it better to let your insurance company make medical decisions for you or better to let your doctor?”

Patten’s career was based on getting complete histories of his patients and relating to them as friends, giving them the time, the attention, and the honesty, they need. He was a master at that. On the other hand, while modern medical advances have saved millions of lives, almost all of today’s doctors are more concerned about covering their butts from lawsuits and understandably so.

Time after time, Patten presents a case from his experience, really scores of them, gives you all the facts, medical and otherwise, and then says, “Attention reader: your diagnosis, please. How would you handle this situation and this patient? How would you handle her/his family?” Often, I felt I was part of a TV’s Dr. House episode.

The lesson about work and research and evidence and thinking are all outlined clearly in the text – you can’t miss them. And they’re great lessons that can be applied to anyone’s life.  Two examples (garnished with the author’s sense of humor) follow.

Lesson: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If you see it, you may believe it.  If you don’t see it, you don’t know. If you don’t know, then suspend judgment.

Lesson: This is important: turning off the respirator makes the brain dead. It doesn’t prove the brain was dead before the respirator was turned off.

Patten is not a big fan of insurance companies and he explains with real cases, why not.

He has an approach-avoidance conflict with the existence of God, prayer, afterlife, heaven, or hell. For the most part, he appears to ridicule all believers in those things. But when they work in his favor, he seems to be thankful for them. As for miracles, he would tell you that he is the miracle-worker and he gets very ticked off when people give God the credit, although he does admit that is a weakness in his character. So, you understand where he’s coming from.  He worked in the age when people did see their doctors as at least a ‘god’ – I remember them well.  In his case, he actually believed it, or so he leads you to think. I must, however, admit he has a great response to a patient who thinks God is telling her to kill her clients.

Patten is also very opinionated on the issue of the media, to the point where I wonder what planet he’s from when he says Fox News in his opinion, “is almost all false witness and false information.” He also is no fan of the current President, yet in his own life, time and again, he acts like him and brags about it. He would have done well to leave politics out of his book, but alas, he has reached the point where he feels he has no need to impress anybody, considering he was freed from such troublesome conditions earlier in life. With that freedom, he proceeds to tell jokes throughout his stories (some not so funny) and some quite surprising coming from a doctor. While I’m at it, if you squirm at the talk of sex (even when it is related to medicine) this book may make you a little uncomfortable.

At the same time, Patten has some great lines. One example is, “There is free speech in America, but you have to pay a price for it.”

He is not a big fan of TV, often yelling out at live cameras, “If you are watching, you are damaging your brain. TV is junk food for the mind.” And on ‘reality’, he writes, “Oh well, reality is nice to visit, but most Americans can’t live there and wouldn’t want to live there even if they could. That’s one of the reasons people watch TV – to get away from the realities of life. In modern America, we have escapism on a planetary scale.”  The context is well worth the price of the book.

But then again, so is just about every one of the 32 chapters or tableaus as he calls them.

His biggest disappointment though is the reception his research in the area of breast implants received from his medical colleagues, many of whom thought he was just plain wrong in his findings. But when asked if they had read the published work, they responded they had not, but got all they needed from TV.  Bummer to say the least.

Before I tell you this book is a must read – for doctors, patients, families of patients, hospital administrators, government health officials – let me just mention a few of the topics he covers: Aristotle Onassis; a horse admitted to hospital for humans (yes, you read correctly); placebos; mistakes; patients predicting their own death accurately; malpractice suits; and breast implants (including what happened to famous celebrities like Pamela Anderson Lee, Mary Tyler Moore, Cher, and others.

Patten ends his book with some advice for any potential scientists who may pursue research into the consequences of implant materials and techniques. I’ll let you discover that on your own.

Here’s my advice on the book: First -- read it. We all need to better understand the worlds of hospital administrators, doctors (surgeons vs. medical team), labs (and what often goes wrong). This book provides that understanding and more.  Second – if you’re a God-believing person, don’t stop praying for your loved ones who are under the care of doctors for serious ailments or diseases. Regardless of what Patten himself thinks, his book clearly proves the need for divine intervention – certainly in term of discernment, diagnosis, and treatment – in this very business- and finance- driven world.

Most highly recommended.

n  Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, October 2, 2019, www.accordconsulting.com

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Benefits of a Life Policy Underwritten by God -- Exodus 15:13-16

“In Thy lovingkindness Thou hast led the people whom Thou hast redeemed; In Thy strength Thou has guided them to the Thy holy habitation.  The peoples have heard, they tremble; Anguish has gripped the inhabitants of Philistia.  Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed; The leaders of Moab, trembling grips them; All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.  Terror and dread fall upon them; By the greatness of Thine arm they are motionless as stone; Until They people pass over, O Lord.  Until the people pass over whom Thou hast purchased.”
 
Not only are we protected from our enemies’ ability to “finish us off” with the policy that comes into effect when we accept it from God Who is the Underwriter Himself, but we can take comfort in the fact that there are a number of additional or supplementary benefits this passage outlines for us.

First and foremost of these is the ‘customer care’ that comes with the policy.  The Bible says, “in (His) loving-kindness” He deals with us and leads us.  While God is just and holy, He is not a tyrant in His relationship with us.  He knows we will fail from time to time.  He is not interested in the perfection of our actions as much as He interested and deeply cares for the attitude of our hearts.  The Bible speaks of this often.

Second is the constant knowledge that as policyholders we have been “redeemed”. There’s no expiry term to the policy.  There is no need to renew it periodically.  It is eternal.

Third, we see that it is God’s “strength” that leads us to His “holy habitation”.  He draws us to Him now.  And, as we will see in the next passage we study, He ultimately takes us to be with Him for eternity.

Fourth, people know that we are covered by the policy and they “tremble”.  Sometimes, it is as minor a comment as “Oh, you’re religious so I better watch my swearing,” but other times, it is a reaction like that of the Egyptians who recognized that God was with the Israelites and that He is Lord.  Sometimes it is a matter of people trembling in their lives and seeing us have ‘hope’ rather than ‘fear’ as we face our challenges.  And hopefully, they will seek out our secret and we will be able to share it with them.

When men depend on themselves for their own salvation, ultimately “terror and dread fall upon them”.  Perhaps we can argue that this is what is happening in the Middle East today as America and the West retreat from their previous level of engagement.  The result is the resurgence of tribal warfare everywhere in an effort to gain control and security.  (My guess is that it will get much worse in the years ahead on that basis.)  But it will not suffice or succeed for God’s “great arm” renders all efforts futile and as capable of action as a “motionless stone”.  All the wars will amount to nothing over time.  One only has to look at the military campaigns of the Romans and the Greeks, the French and English, and the Russians, not to mention Germany and Japan.  How great are they now?  How much have they kept?  And the same is true of all the calamities of war in the continent of Africa.  There is nothing humanly that can be done to fix the state the world is in.

How long will this go on?  How long will God keep these human efforts under His foot?  This passage tells us by the song the Israelites are singing that the powers of the enemies were held in check until God’s people safely “passed over” the Red Sea.  I believe the parallel here for us is that God will keep our enemies at bay until we pass through this life and are safe and sound in the arms of Jesus.

Fifth, and most importantly, this is a “paid up” policy; there are no premiums.  In fact, the person being covered does not have to pay a cent.  The policy is a “free gift” by the Underwriter.   He has paid for it.  He has “purchased” the right to insure us with the blood and life of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  There is no “life” policy like it.

Yet, millions upon millions of people who know about it reject it outright.  Fearing it is “too good to be true”, they miss out on a life of security and joy and peace, not to mention eternity with God.  Instead, they dread and fear each moment of terror they experience in life.  They hit emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, and social “walls” and there is no “insurance agent” there with them or on the scene to pick up the pieces and heal and comfort.  There is no one or anything that can provide one’s life with a fresh purpose for living.  I do not know about you, but I personally have hit major walls in my life.  Were it not for God my Insurer, I do not know where I would be today.

Each of us has a choice.  We can either take the policy allowing it to cover us or we can say, “No thanks.  I’ll do it my way.”  In fact, America, Canada, the West, and the world, has a choice.  But that choice can only be arrived at for them as individual citizens like you and me make the right choice, and then live our lives for the God Who has us covered.  It is my prayer that your name is on that Policy.

________________________________________________________________________

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

Thanks for dropping by. Sign up to receive free updates. We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources. Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar. And please share this blog with your friends. Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting.  And while you’re here, why not check out some more of our recent blogs shown in the right hand column.  Ken.

________________________________________________________________________

 

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Enemies’ Best Intentions Amount to Nothing When Fighting God’s Will -- Exodus 15:9-12

“The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; My desire shall be gratified against them; I will draw out my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’  Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them; They sank like lead in the mighty waters.  Who is like Thee among the gods, O Lord?  Who is like Thee, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?  Thou didst stretch out Thy right hand, The earth swallowed them.”
 
Do you ever wonder why you buy an insurance policy?  If the truth were known, the bottom line is that you buy insurance because bad things happen.  Drunk or incapable drivers hit your car; evil people break into your house; mean people want to see you fail and sue you; disease takes away your ability to earn a living; etc.  As I read this passage of Scripture I felt I was reading a copy of the ultimate insurance policy I could have.

The first portion outlines clearly the perils that are being insured against.  Our enemies be they human, or other forces of evil, are out to pursue us.  Their full intent is to overtake us.  They want to attack us when we’re down like spoils and divide us in order to conquer us.  They find great desire in imagining how gratified they will be when they succeed in getting us to the point where they can draw out their sword and destroy us.

The next section outlines the power of the Insurer to act in such cases is.  He can utilize nature to blow the enemy around and to engulf him or it.  He can sink the enemy like lead sinks in water, as portrayed by the actual account of what He did for the Israelites who were pursued by the Egyptians who wanted their destruction.

And then in the last section of the passage, we see what we may call the testimonials of others who have experienced the benefits of such an insurance policy.  In brief, they say the Insurer is One Who cannot be matched in perfection.  There is none among the other insurers like this One.  And the reason is that “He is majestic in holiness”, and He works incredible wonders.  God’s glory is such that angels adore it writes Matthew Henry.  His holiness is evidenced in the fact that He destroyed Pharaoh, He hates sin, and He exercises great anger against unrepentant sinners.  He delivers His children from their enemies and has a plan for mankind.

There is another phrase in this song or what I am calling ‘our insurance policy’ that is a little more difficult to explain easily.  The text says, “He is fearful in praises”.  This refers to our role or the terms of the policy that we need to agree to.  We are to fear Him in our praises.  His power, majesty and holiness are to be the very substance of our praise.  And Henry suggests that while to the Christian (the policyholder) this can be done in joy, those very same characteristics are feared and dreaded by our and God’s enemies.  Our job, he says, is to “praise Him with a humble holy awe, and serve the Lord with fear.”  Our spiritual joy and triumph must be balanced with a sacred or devout, healthy, fear.

Finally, in the last portion of the passage (our policy), we read of the finality of God’s insurance for His children.  He stretches out His right hand and causes the earth to swallow our enemies.  The actual words of the song in this passage that the Israelites are singing are not meant to convey their deep appreciation of only the past, that is, their triumph over the Egyptians. They are also meant to be a continuous memory to future generations of what God is capable of doing and will do.  The text does not say, “Who was like Thee among the gods, O Lord?  Who was like Thee, majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?”  No, it says, Who IS.  And our God is not dead, He still IS.

I would have preferred to end these thoughts on this passage on that positive note.  However, I must admit that when I first read it as part of this devotional study, what came to mind as something many of us could well state is this:  “But I have done everything right and still God did not spare or rescue me.  I cannot sing this song.”  Or, “I have purchased the policy, but am unable to live life joyfully, fearing God may not apply all its terms for me.”

Ah, there’s the rub.  In fact, there are two rubs.

The first is this: We must remember that an insurance policy does not prevent the enemy from trying to destroy us; he or it will indeed try to.  The policy prevents the enemy from actually destroying us utterly.  It allows us to recover form the damages suffered and to become victorious again in our lives.  God did not say the children of Israel would be spared from slavery in Egypt or even hardship in the wilderness on route to the Promised Land.  He promised safe and ultimate passage.  If that is not good enough for you and me, then we have a misunderstanding of what “life with God” is all about.

The second rub is this: If we have accepted the policy but still fear life and the future, then we need to get to know the Insurer better.  We need to stop relying on our ourselves to ensure our ability to make it through the deep waters, but rather to trust the loving Father who waits in the waters to save us when life requires us to jump in.  Whatever it is we need to pass through, Jesus Christ God’s Son has been there.

Perhaps our fear has to do with whether or not we will have the ability to cope physically, emotionally, or mentally, with the deep waters, even if we know that ultimately God will rescue us.  That is a legitimate fear, but there is nothing we can do about it except to realize that God has promised He will indeed give us the strength to get through it when the time comes (I Corinthians 10:13).  So, take heart, know you are covered and live victoriously both about your past attacks by the Enemy and in the knowledge that he will be defeated again should he dare to attack you anew in the future.

________________________________________________________________________

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

Thanks for dropping by. Sign up to receive free updates. We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources. Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar. And please share this blog with your friends. Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting.  And while you’re here, why not check out some more of our recent blogs shown in the right hand column.  Ken.

________________________________________________________________________

 

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Obama’s Contraceptive 'Compromise' Isn't. Here's Why.

Okay, here is a good analysis of why Obama's 'compromise' is a joke. And it misses the point of the objection in the first place.  This does not fool anyone who doesn't want to be fooled.  Take a look.

Obama’s Contraceptive 'Compromise' Doesn't Pass the Smell Test - Mary Kate Cary (usnews.com)

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

Thanks for dropping by. Sign up to receive free updates. We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources. Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar. And please share this blog with your friends. Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

How Laissez-faire Governments Let Insurance Companies Get Away With Murder.

This is very sad and totally unacceptable.   I blame the government whose jurisdiction it is to oversee these matters. And I must admit, the CBC has finally done something good recently. Good for them. They should focus on more of this than their usual leftist agenda.

Retired couple billed $50,000 despite travel insurance - British Columbia - CBC News

[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

Thanks for dropping by. Sign up to receive free updates. We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources. Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar. And please share this blog with your friends. Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting. 

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Sure You Like "Progressive Insurance" Ads, But if You Buy, Do You Know Who and What You Are Supporting?

When I first read this, I felt I needed to check it out. And I did. On Snopes and also on another similar site - truthorfiction.com. Both say this is true. So you may want to think about.   You really need to check these out.   This man's money goes to defeat everything that most Christians stand for.


http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/aclu-lewis.htm

snopes.com: Progressive Insurance - Peter Lewis Donations


 

-- Thanks for dropping by.  Sign up to receive free updates.  We bring you relevant information from all sorts of sources.  Subscribe for free to this blog or follow us by clicking on the appropriate link in the right side bar.  And please share this blog with your friends.   Ken Godevenos, Church and Management Consultant, Accord Consulting.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.