Posts by Women Physicians and Dentists in Christ

When patients of mine have sciatica, they are miserable.

But sometimes it’s hard to convince them that their leg pain – or foot pain, or toe pain – actually originates in their back. “My back doesn’t that hurt much, Doc. It’s the leg that’s hurting so bad.”

Sciatica is like that.

The day began as an ordinary day, driving the nearly three hours from the home in Springfield, Missouri I share with my spouse of seven years, to Kansas City where I continue to work practicing urgent care pediatric medicine full-time for the Children’s Hospital. I arrived for the noon opening of the urgent care clinic to find we were two providers short that day. In other words, we were at half-staff from a physician standpoint.

Why has God designed things so we learn most of life’s biggest lessons under stress? I’ve had this assignment to do a devotional for a long time and I have written it twice, but here’s my third attempt because my family is under stress and I am seeing God in the midst of it.

The Thanksgiving season is upon us. Sadly, the holiday is becoming dwarfed by other expanding fall traditions and an ever earlier commencement of the Christmas extravaganza. The enemy is constantly on the prowl (John 10:10), encouraging us to be too busy and distracted to give thanks. In reality, this period of thankfulness is paramount for preparing our hearts for the Christmas season. Thankfulness displaces the focus from oneself to one’s Provider and Sustainer, often quieting the discontented heart, leading to a more purposeful (and less harried) approach to honoring our Savior’s birth. I desperately want to lean in deeper to my Sustainer during this season.

It wasn’t until my mid-thirties that I recognized one of my mother’s spiritual gifts was encouragement. I was fortunate to grow up in a home with it. Many other children and adults received her encouragement over her 100 years of life.

Rigor—relevance—relationships—these three values are at the top of my high school senior’s school webpage. It made me think about how those values might be applied to Women in Medicine and Dentistry.

That’s how I feel about my own life lately. I want to tell you that it has been a quiet week in the Galbreath household. But I’d be lying. I want to tell you that we never argue or complain or criticize or compete with those we love. But I’d be lying.

Jesus offers us sight – spiritual sight. But so often I forget to ask for it. How frequently do I need to pray for His insight on a problem? Most often it’s not enough time to get all the things done I think I need to or wisdom on how to help a difficult patient or a puzzling medical problem.

Recently, my 11-year-old daughter was screened for a research project at Case W. It will compare functional MRI scans of bipolar children with healthy children at two-year intervals to look for differences in development and function.

Sandwiched between Georgia’s infamous statewide snow day and Valentine’s Day was a day that I will never forget. That dismal afternoon I received a letter from the dean of my medical school indicating that I was being “dismissed from the Class of 2012” and “invited to join the Class of 2013 in August.” Although I knew that I was in danger of such a pronouncement because I had failed two classes, the news was nonetheless devastating and unexpected.