Jeff Haanen

Category

Science

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Faith and Work Bible Study

Friends, a happy Labor Day to you!

To celebrate your work, I wanted to give you a gift: a free Bible study on Faith and Work.

The study is structured around people’s stories. In a series of articles, I highlighted the way people are living out their faith in the workplace.

Each study has a brief story Bible study participants can read at home. After each article, and before the study, we encourage you to Pause and Reflect on what the story might be telling you about God’s call for your own work.

The Bible study is structured around six sections: Introduce, Discuss, Explore, Apply, Closing Thoughts, and Prayer. It also has additional Resources.

Here are the weekly topics for “His Story, Our Stories: Encountering God Through Our Work”:

(1) “Light for Electricians,” (Creation)

(2) “Investments for the Kingdom” (Calling)

(3) “Showing Hospitality to Strangers and Spring Breakers” (Fall)

(4) “Productivity and Grace: Management and Labor at a Denver Manufacturer,” (Witness at Work)

(5) “A Well-Designed Journal Can Change Your Life,” (Culture)

(6) “A Growing Charter School Planted in Rocky Soil,” (Organizations/Companies)

Enjoy!

Looking for more material? Visit Scatter.org.

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ScienceVocation

Callings in Conflict? Pursuing Scientific Excellence and a Life of Faith

 

Widespread sentiment suggests that science and faith are at odds, at war for leadership in modern culture. Yet many of history’s great minds were people of deep faith. They were driven to science by an insatiable hunger to learn about and celebrate God. Can Christians working in the sciences recover this passion without compromising professional excellence Can we seek truth in science and in Scripture?

Those will be a few of the questions DIFW will ask at a Forum on February 15 at the Colorado School of Mines on “Callings in Conflict? Pursuing Scientific Excellence and a Life of Faith.”

Our keynote speaker will be Praveen Sethupathy from Cornell University, a geneticist and a board member at Board of BioLogos, a nonprofit that promotes the harmony of science and biblical faith through an evolutionary understanding of God’s creation. It’ll also feature a panel of local scientists who endeavor to life a life of faith and scientific integrity.

I hope you’ll join the conversation in less than two weeks. Here’s a taste of what’s to come:

 

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Health CareScienceWork

An Ancient Christian Vision for Modern Medicine

 

Meet the Denver doctor on a hilarious, heartfelt search for the healing ingredient in health care.

“Do you remember our handshake? The Nussbaum handshake? First you slap, then you shake, then you slide! It’s the Nussbaum sandshake, the Nussnutt landrake, the Fussbutt bandlake, the Cussbutt taketake!”

Martha, a retired nurse battling depression, found herself once again on the psych unit under the care of Dr. Abraham Nussbaum, a psychiatrist at Denver Health and author of a new memoir, The Finest Traditions of My Calling: One Physician’s Search for the Renewal of Medicine. After years of hospitalizations, Martha formalized her affection for Dr. Nussbaum with “the dreamshake.” Slide and shake, pinky swear, fist bump, explosion.

But why the dreamshake? What did Martha dream about her doctor? Was he a scientist, friend, lover, pill-provider, teacher, technician—or savior?

In a mammoth industry—in 2014, $3 trillion, or $9,523 per American, was spent on health care—competing visions for reform abound. Nussbaum, a 41-year-old Catholic physician, ushers readers through a wild, weird, head scratching, infuriating, and tender odyssey into the dizzying diversity of modern medicine.

Part journalist, part comic, part philosopher, and part shrink, Nussbaum’s search for the healing of healthcare culminates not with the wonders of technology or a recipe for cost-saving, but instead with a fourth-century bishop’s call to build a “poor house” for the ill.

Comedy and Tragedy

On the second day of med school, a young female pathology resident grabbed lunch from the cafeteria and accompanied Nussbaum to his first autopsy. She casually chatted while cutting open an elderly man’s chest—opening the rib cage, removing the organs, and plopping intestines into the sink before she “ran the bowel,” spilling out feces.

As guts spilled out of the cadaver, Nussbaum asked if she ever considered vegetarianism. “No,” she said. “Why would you ask?”

For Nussbaum, residency began by learning how to handle dead body parts; it eventually grew to learning how to handle co-workers.

As a third-year resident, Nussbaum (the rookie) shadowed Cannon, an intern with small glasses, curly hair and pearly teeth. Around three in the morning, a nurse paged them about a patient with a case of the hiccups.

“Okay, Rook, look up treatments for intractable hiccups,” Cannon said.

“Chlorpromazine. Haloperidol. Methylphenidate. Baclofen. Midazolam. Rectal massage.”

“What was that last one?”

“Rectal massage.”

“Uh-huh. That’s the one. Rook, let me teach you. You’ve got to show the nurse who’s in charge.”

The furious nurses massaged the patient’s rectum every 15 minutes the entire night—and made sure to page Cannon mercilessly for the next half decade while on call.

It’s hard to say whether the physicians, the patients, or the consultants in The Finest Traditions of My Calling are more entertaining.

Dr. Paul Bregman, one of Colorado’s many marijuana doctors, arrives to lunch wearing Air Jordans, tweed pants, and a black t-shirt, and tries to offer Nussbaum a bag of cannabis-infused Ho-Hos (“I want you to see the amazing”). Connie, a patient who is sure her sister is plotting to harm Peyton Manning, won’t relent until the star quarterback visits her in treatment. A team of health care consultants prints t-shirts with the new hospital motto. They get tossed from floor to floor by underwhelmed doctors and nurses, and eventually worn by wild-eyed patients on the third-floor psych unit who could uniquely identify with the new slogan: “I’M COMMITTED.”

Yet the comedy of medicine often gives way to the tragic.

Bao was a 43-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who regularly visited the emergency department reporting chest pain, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety. She felt “as lonely as an empty cup.” One night, Bao, a self-described virgin, requested birth control pills. When asked why, she said, “I met a man.”

“Can you tell me about him?”

“My car broke down on the highway. I was on the side of the road and a police officer helped me call a tow truck. Then he told me he was separated from his wife and wondered if we could get together some time. For sex. He told me he liked Asian ladies.”

The internist had prescribed Ortho Tri-Cyclen for birth control, but had missed Bao’s real story completely.

“The value of experience,” said Sir William Osler, founder of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, “is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.” Has modern medicine reduced people to “parts and money,” billing patients for defective limbs or organs, yet forgotten to cultivate deeper virtues?

Amidst such a circus, where does one look to discover and “to preserve the finest traditions of my calling,” to which the Hippocratic Oath refers?

The World’s First Hospital   

While enrolled in an AmeriCorps program after college, Nussbaum lived at a Dominican priory. One night, he arrived for mandatory vespers for hymn singing. They cracked open their hymnals to the 72nd Psalm,

“He will rescue the poor at their call,
those no one speaks for.
Those no one cares for
he hears and will save.
He saves their lives from violence,
lives precious in his eyes.”

Having just seen Francisnek, a homeless Polish immigrant whose sobriety was the boast of the rescue mission, slip back into alcoholism, Nussbaum longed for the fulfillment of the psalmist’s promise.

In contrast to the scotch-sipping, sitcom watching friars, the Sinsinawa Dominicans, their sister community down the road, “seemed strangely alive in the absence of men.” One nun handed Nussbaum a “holy card”—like a baseball card for Catholics—of two saints, Cosmas and Damian, “Physicians and Martyrs” who promised to turn their bearers into “willing and loving servants.” Considering the call to medicine, Nussbaum’s pilgrimage took him to Duke University, to study the history of medicine under theologian Stanley Hauwerwas.

In the ancient Greek tradition, sick people came to the temple of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, and offered gifts in exchange for health. Likewise, Greek doctors saw only those who could pay, and there was no public duty toward the sick. But the Jewish tradition of hospitality and the Christian tradition of charity to the poor birthed a new, public commitment to the ill.

In 370, Basil, the new bishop of Caesarea, built a ptochotropeion, or house for the poor, ill, and dispossessed. Located on city’s edge, so it would be accessible especially to travelers and strangers, clerics, deacons, and lay physicians gave patients rest, meals, and care. Basil believed Christians were responsible for the social welfare of the entire city, not only the wealthy. Many scholars today consider Basil’s ptochotropeion to be the first hospital in Western society, the foundation of public-health efforts, and the historical inspiration behind hospitals for the indigent ill in cities throughout the West.

Denver Health, where Nussbaum practices medicine today, descends from Basil’s vision, however loosely. Outside the hospital is a bench, cut from stone, that reads “DO JUSTICE. LOVE GOODNESS. WALK HUMBLY.” The omission of God’s name from the prophet Micah’s famous injunction is both a symbol of medicine’s forgotten origin and a testimony to longings for a deeper, more soul-satisfying vision of the physician’s vocation.

Each morning, when Nussbaum’s arises from bed, he gazes upon an image of Basil of Caesarea. “To place the hope of one’s heath in the hands of the doctor is the act of an irrational animal,” wrote Basil. But “when reason allows, we call in the doctor, but we do not leave off hoping in God.”

Engagement with Faith

The Finest Traditions of My Calling is a sparkling, heart-wrenching, hilarious success.

Even when critiquing quality improvement experts, the narrative still charms. Nussbaum once compares Atul Gawande’s New Yorker essay on “Big Med,” which promises healthcare will be saved by becoming like aircraft carriers or assembly-line restaurants, to “Famous Factory Meatloaf” produced at the Cheesecake Factory.

Yet it’s his serious and delightful engagement with Christianity that really elevates the book. He praises Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval abbess, musician, mystic, and pre-modern clinician, for gently nursing both gardens and patients back to health. Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, advocates an application of liberation theology to health care, and opens clinics for the impoverished from Malawi to Peru to Russia. Nussbaum suffers alongside of one of his patients, Eleanor, who struggles to believe in a God who let her mother die of cancer.

Most books on medicine either completely ignore Christianity (and assume medicine started in the 20th century) or see it as a tactic for converting patients. But here, faith is a surprising source of hope. Though Nussbaum doesn’t claim to be a “Catholic psychiatrist,” (he unconvincingly claims to be a “bad Catholic” in the vein of the novelist Walker Percy), his Christian commitments shine through with the humility of St. Luke the Physician.

Yet perhaps Nussbaum’s greatest triumph is turning a medical memoir, a genre that can inspire intractable cases of yawning, into an accessible adventure for a general audience, one worthy of a sequel or even a film adaptation.

Weeks after finishing the book, my daughters are still asking me to do the Nussbaum handshake.

This book review first appeared on christianitytoday.com

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ScienceWork

Seven Quotes from Psychiatrist Curt Thompson on Shame

Yesterday we at Denver Institute for Faith & Work had the privilege of welcoming author and psychiatrist Curt Thompson to Denver. We began with a conversation with pastors on how shame influences our brains, our vocations, and pastoral ministry; we then heard Curt speak at Colorado Community Church to 150 attendees on how to heal shame through retelling a different story about ourselves; he ended his time giving a workshop on shame for therapists in the Denver area.

His combination of neuroscience, psychiatry, interpersonal biology, Christian theology and spiritual formation practices was, well, I’ve never heard anything like it…

The videos of his talks will be available on our vimeo channel in about a month. Until then, here are some of my favorite quotes from his time with us.

Seven Quotes from Curt Thompson on Shame

1. “Shame is directly connected to your ability to do creative, liberating work.”

2. “Shame was operative in the garden of Eden even before Eve ate the fruit; the serpent introduced it before the Fall.”

3. “We are best able to create, as God does, when we are ‘naked and unashamed'” (Gen. 2:25).”

4. “The healing of shame takes place through the process of being known, through vulnerability in community.”

5. “Pastoral ministry is one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Where can pastors go to talk about their shame?”

6. “If you were not afraid of being ashamed, what risks would you take in your job?”

7. “Paying attention to the Holy Spirit is first paying attention to your body, and how your body is responding to shame.”

img_4314img_4302img_4300img_4311 img_4305

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ArtCraftsmanship & Manual LaborCultureEconomyEducationFinanceMediaNonprofitPoliticsScienceTechnologyTheologyWorkWorld

Announcement: Launch of the 5280 Fellowship

Today is a big day.

Today my colleagues and I at Denver Institute for Faith & Work, in partnership with Gordon College, announce the launch of the 5280 Fellowship, a 9 month experience for emerging leaders beginning in the fall of 2016.

After years of planning, design and forging partnerships, each element of the program has fallen into place. And now what we are now offering is, I believe, one of the best faith-based fellowship programs in the US, and perhaps Denver’s premiere leadership experience for young professionals.

I know those are big claims. But I believe the 5280 Fellowship has the potential to deeply impact Denver for generations to come. And I’m not alone.

Some of Denver’s finest pastors – like Robert Gelinas (Colorado Community Church), Brad Strait (Cherry Creek Presbyterian), Rob Brendle (Denver United), Brian Brown (Park Church) and Hunter Beaumont (Fellowship Denver) – believe the Fellowship can be a life-changing experience for young professionals who want to deeply engage themes of calling, work, and culture.

Young professionals like Steven Strott (Cool Planet Energy Systems) and Amy Wofford (The Commons at Champa) see the value of connecting to a community of faithful leaders in Denver and articulate how important work is to the flourishing of a city.

And Dr. Michael Lindsay, the president of Gordon College who has deeply studied the world’s most effective leadership program, the White House Fellowship, believes this program, which has been modeled largely on his research, will give young professionals:

  • “deep relationships that span the city,”
  • a vision for how “the gospel provides a kind of connective tissue, helping us to see how does science and technology relate to the arts and entertainment,”
  • and a “catalyst in your career for the prospering not only of the wider culture, but also your life.”

Needless to say, if you’re asking big questions about the role of Christians in culture; if you’re interested in the relevance of the gospel to all of life; if you’re wondering about your own calling; and if you’re up for a challenge that could catalyze your career — then I encourage you to learn more at an upcoming info session.

Some of you may also be interested why we built the program as we did. On this blog, over the next several weeks, I’d like to peel back the veil on the principles underlying the Fellowship and why we built the program as we did. Blog posts will cover topics like:

  • Why Some Doctors Read the History of Opera: Leadership and Liberal Arts Thinking
  • EQ: Why Being a Good Conversationalist Might Be More Important Than an MBA
  • Why Nothing Before Age 20 Matters (And Why Your 20s-40s are the Most Critical to Career Success)
  • Calling: Learning to Listen to the Caller
  • Spelunking, Cave Formations and Culture Change
  • Our Common Longing: Meaningful Work
  • The Church in the World: Reformation, not Revolution
  • The Future of Higher Education: Friendships and the Information Deluge
  • The Golden Web: Mentors, Networks, and the Hidden Leadership Curriculum
  • Mission: Larger Than A Two Week Trip Overseas
  • Scattered: Being the Church Monday-Saturday
  • Significant Work: Developing a Taste for Tackling Big Problems

The launch of any new educational experience is really just the beginning of a conversation. This is a conversation on what it means to be fully human in this time and this place. I’d like to take the chance to invite you into this community.

I’d love to hear any and all feedback as the conversation grows. I hope you’ll consider joining me on this adventure into our own souls, the life of our city, and the heart of God.

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Science

The Secret to Satisfying Work

Two weeks ago I had coffee with Dr. Gary VanderArk. Brimming with energy and curiosity at nearly 80 years old, he revealed to me the secret of satisfying work.

Dr. Gary VanderArk (left) won the 2012 CEBA Bill Daniels Business Ethics Award.

Dr. Gary VanderArk (left) won the 2012 CEBA Bill Daniels Business Ethics Award.

One person described Dr. VanderArk as “a giant of a man.” He was right. For over 40 years, Dr. VanderArk has been a neurosurgeon, and he still serves as a clinical professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Colorado. Yet his stature in the Colorado health community has grown exponentially because of his tireless efforts on behalf of the medically underserved.

Dr. VanderArk created Doctor’s Care, a system of clinics staffed by doctors donating their time and services to those who otherwise couldn’t afford it. The program serves over 1,500/year and has contributed more than $30 million in free care. In 1997 he also started the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved, an organization with the mission of serving patients without health insurance. In addition, he founded the Colorado Neurological Institute (CNI) and almost singlehandedly saved CU Medical School’s Residency in Neurosurgery Program. He also serves on more than a dozen nonprofit boards.

As I sat down for coffee with the slender giant, I was initially a bit intimidated. As someone interested in the topic of faith and work, what do you say to somebody who is the embodiment of integrating faith and work, and has been doing it with unprecedented excellence longer than I’ve been alive?

But as we began to chat at the Denver Seminary (another organization on which he serves on the board) student lounge, my fears were quickly put to rest. He shared with me the story of how he became interested in neuroscience as a child (the movie Magnificent Obsession gave him a desire to be a doctor) and how a mentor deeply influenced his early career.

After chatting like old friends for a half hour (Who am I that he would even meet with me?), I asked him a question that was burning in the back of my mind. “When you were founding Doctor’s Care, how did you convince dozens of doctors to give hundreds of volunteer hours to those without insurance?” To ask busy physicians to give so much seemed like an impossible feat.

He pondered the question for a moment, and responded with a quote from Jesus. “If we really believe, as Jesus said, ‘It is better to give than to receive,’ then that means when we give to others we receive greater blessing than when we receive. So when I ask doctors to give their time or serve on a board, I know that I’m asking for something that will bring them joy. I ask boldly because I know that my asking will bring them satisfaction and happiness when they give to others.”

Dr. Gary VanderArk reversed a paradigm in my mind. When you ask somebody for a donation, either of time, skill, or money, you are “costing” them whatever they ask. Or so I thought. In Dr. VanderArk’s mind, when you ask, you are giving them a great reward, the satisfying joy of giving to another.  Taking Jesus’ words seriously led to a boldness to ask others to serve those in need.

Today Dr. VanderArk is “retired,” yet he still teaches 7 classes of medical students at CU Medical School, and serves on more boards than can be counted. The secret to his brimming energy and fruitful career, is simple: give. Giving, and asking others to give, is how he multiplies his joy – and how he became a “giant of a man” in the state of Colorado.

Discussion question: What opportunities do you see to serve others in your field? Who are you asking to join you?

 

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