SPRING 2024

In the medical arena, when I was a student, we had one lecture on how to behave professionally, and it was not about standards, just how the lawyers could be kept at bay. It was etiquette not ethics. Students heard the Bible in school, church and home. For almost all those where the Bible was central in the home, it was the foundation for living well.

Many of my generation followed the “patient first, no matter the cost,” that no doubt led to numerous bouts of exhaustion, isolation and fractured relationships. Looking back for me and ahead for several others, I have to ask the question of etiology and treatment for walking and practicing both life and healthcare while following God’s direction as a blind man.

In 2025, the United States is experiencing the largest measles outbreak in decades, with 1,309 cases, a 13 percent hospitalization rate and three preventable deaths.[1] Only 4 percent of cases received the recommended two doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR). Several cases occur in communities of faith. The purpose of this article is to review the biblical and scientific justifications for MMR.

Until the last few years, trisomy 13 and 18 have been among a few congenital syndromes that medical texts and experts deemed to be “incompatible with life.” It therefore has been a common practice for families and physicians facing this diagnosis to either choose abortions or to withhold certain medical interventions that would prove lifesaving.

In the winter 2025 edition of CMDA Today, read about one family’s transformative faith in the face of a challenging diagnosis, how Christian healthcare professionals can confront burnout, a Christian healthcare professional’s response to measles vaccination, and much more.

We are not reading as we used to. Does it matter? Before the arrival of television and modern media, reading books from beginning to end was a major activity both for learning and relaxation. Nowadays most people reading on the internet have an attention span of five to seven minutes.

In February 2023, the state of Tennessee passed Senate Bill 1, prohibiting the use of “medical procedures for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex or treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identities.”