Episode 53: O.R.
Henry: It’s just fatigue, it comes and goes.
Hawkeye: Henry, this could be your ticket home…
Henry: Pierce, I’ll level with you. I’ve got a great practice
back home. They all come to see me. I’ll bet there’s
no one in Bloomington,
Illinois, that I haven’t seen
naked. But it’s routine.
Hawkeye: Cookbook
medicine. Henry: Yeah. But this place, this place, which has all the
attraction of a lanced boil, has given me the opportunity to do more doctoring
than I can do in a lifetime back in the world.
A busy day in the O.R. reveals the pressures and
stresses of the medical staff who are overworked and have to make difficult
decisions in difficult circumstances.
One of the many things I love about my role as a
Salvation Army Officer is that no day is the same and very few are
predictable. On any given day I can be
sharing my faith, coaching leaders, preparing for public ministry, visiting the
sick, responding to one crisis or another, supporting vulnerable people,
managing programs, shuffling paperwork or leading a service. Leading in a frontline mission context, while
often demanding, is an exhilarating fulfillment of what I was called and
trained to do. While leadership that is bound
by routine can be draining or even depressing, leadership that breaks out of
the ordinary can be energizing and empowering, no matter how challenging the context. The key to turning the routine into the
remarkable is to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary and embrace every
moment as an opportunity.
