As a nurse, I was trained to develop a practice that I could defend decades later. That way I could say, “I don’t remember that situation, but I always checked blood pressures before giving meds. I always reviewed lab work. I always ____. It has been my practice.” I will never not ask your name and date of birth when I first enter your room, and you had better believe I care about your last bowel movement.
As a future provider, I am being trained on evidence-based guidelines. Standards of care are created after years of study and thousands of results; EBGs show us the best way to treat patients. For example, narcotics are no longer indicated for chronic pain. Sinus infection symptoms should persist for 7-10 days before antibiotics are prescribed. A specific set of maneuvers guides us to a vertigo diagnosis when someone complains of dizziness.
I’m not on my own yet, but for the last few years, I feel most safe and secure when I explain a plan of care using evidence. “This is what has worked for tens, or even hundreds, of years for people in your situation. This is the standard of treatment.” What’s interesting, though, is the number of providers under whom I’ve trained who don’t use the guidelines. I understand the need to deviate on occasion, but I frequently meet folks who don’t reference them at all. They tell me the guidelines just don’t work for them. The real world is different.
I might not choose this path in medicine, but I do this in so many other areas of my life. I’ve learned how to eat and exercise to get healthy. I have a basic working knowledge of generous and gracious ways to function in relationship. I’ve tasted and seen that spending time in God’s Word helps conform me to the image of Christ, which has and will always be my only goal here on earth.
So why don’t I choose these beneficial disciplines all of the time? The answers are vast and wide, depending on the day. I might opt for self-indulgence, or I don’t want to feel restricted. Maybe I claim to be avoiding legalism, or I’m just plain tired. Either way you slice it, I’ve chosen to respond like one of those providers. The guidelines just don’t work for me. The real world is different. Is it, though?
Here is what I know. God’s truths have stood the test of time, trial, and tribulation for thousands of years. I can depend on His character and His promises to be true and unchanging. Therefore, I can trust his precepts. They are my evidence-based guidelines for life.
Living my life this way will always give me a defense, a proven thesis on which I conduct myself from now until the day I die. I may not remember the exact decision, or the interaction with a particular person, but I will remember the way I lived. A life built on the precepts of God. I will always have an answer for folks on earth and my Father in heaven. I chose to steward my body well. I chose to pursue peace in relationship. I chose to spend time in the Word. This has been my practice.