"The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease." Famous quote by Sir William Osler (1849–1919)

I prepared Dr. McAden a thank you card and with the help of ChatGPT, the front included him in our photo. He said he would always treasure it. 

Good morning and welcome. It's a good day in the neighborhood, or, at least I think it is on this Wednesday, March 11, 2025. I was up early this morning since I had the first appointment for my annual wellness checkup, but, sadly, for the wife and I, it's the last time we will get to see our primary care physician, Dr. Brett McAden, since he is retiring at the end of March. I hear people talking much about how difficult they have had it finding a good doctor. We feel blessed to have had Dr. McAden to see after our medical needs over the past ten years or more. We signed up with him when our previous primary care, Dr. Tony Nguyen, left to become a medical missionary in the Philippine Islands. Here's my simple test for knowing you have a good doctor: They take care of the issue at hand. Dr. Nguyen did that. Dr. McAden has done that, and, we are now signed up with a new doctor beginning in April. That is always an interesting transition because how many doctors have to treat the patient along with their alter egos, Santa and Mrs. Claus? The staff at Kelsey are always excited to see me because I have one of my Santa photos as my profile on my medical record. The new doctor is from Laos, a country in Southeast Asia. We had four suggested to us and, after watching their introduction videos, I chose him because he speaks perfect English with very little accent. Before you call me a racial profiler, hear me out. As one gets older, communication becomes more and more important, especially when it pertains to responding to medical challenges. Back in the mid 1960's I worked in the VA Hospital system and I can attest first hand to the communication breakdowns that occurred between foreign born medical staff as they diagnosed and treated many elderly veterans. Here's what I will say about our experience with medical care over these past many years: We have been blessed and we thank God for the level of care we have received. And, I think I am unanimous in my opinion.

 

This is not the blog I wrote for today's edition. I had a really good one finished yesterday but through a series of intentional actions on my part I unintentionally did not save it, therefore, this is the mostly an all new replacement since, being honest, I can't remember everything I had on my mind this morning, much less yesterday. You know what I mean, right Vern? I felt really good about the lost one and whatever comes out of this one, well, it will have to do. I do know this. You can never go wrong by mentioning the source of all truth and our ability to access it. There are an estimated 6 billion copies of the Bible in circulation with 100 million new copies printed every year. This means a God breathed compilation of His truths is readily available to most of us. Let me take it a step further. There are myriads of audio versions of the various translations of God's Word available on many different applications, like YouTube and many others. In light of this, it means the truth found in Romans 1:20 is even more profound, "For from the creation of the world His invisible qualities, both His eternal power and divinity, are clearly seen, being understood by the things made, for them to be without excuse." Add to that truth the easy availability of the written Word of God and I think we all can agree about humanity being without excuse. I'll leave you with this well known quote attributed to Mark Twain, "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand". I hear that loud Amen. Mine too. If I happen to meet up with whatever was in that lost blog I'll be sure to share it with you, but, until next time, may God bless us all. Amen.