Printed from: https://archive.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=issue&id=6100
Paul Johnson explains the process and the benefits of spiritual appraisal. Like many Triple Helix readers, I have recently undergone my annual consultant appraisal. Introduced as a contractual obligation in 2001, annual appraisals have become an important part of the yearly cycle for doctors. Although, sadly in reality appraisals often become...
Peter Saunders analyses another case of smoke and mirrors. Research scientist Dr Kathy Niakan, from the Francis Crick Institute in London, received the go-ahead from the fertility regulator to genetically modify human embryos on 1 February. This is the first time a country has considered the technique in embryos and approved...
Chris Richards reflects on how scans point to the reality of life in the womb In the UK, pregnant woman are routinely offered an ultrasound scan at 11-13 weeks for dating purposes and at 18-20 weeks to detect any fetal anomalies. More recently 3-D images (and even so-called 4-D, which...
Adrian Warnock assesses the opportunities for using social media. My grandfather is in his nineties. He is old enough enough to remember a horse and cart delivering his milk. During his lifetime, here is just a sample of the technological advances he has seen: Widespread car use The Jet Airliner TV...
David Curnock shares spiritual lessons learned at home and abroad. As a medical student I went on a six week elective to Ghana. I learned so much and enjoyed it so much that I promised myself that when I'd passed my paediatric exams I'd go back to Africa. After getting...
Alice Gerth reflects on opportunities church life offers junior doctors. Changeover is a big day for all doctors. For many, starting as an F1 brings a unique set of challenges: new city, new job, new church, new friends. Looking back on this experience, I found settling into a new...
Ruth Butlin reviews the challenges involved in fighting leprosy today. The leprosy bacterium is a lazy microorganism, not in any hurry to grow or multiply or mutate. It takes about a fortnight to proceed from one cell division to the next, and only manages that when embedded in a living cell...
A better story Abortion on grounds of disability? Praise for one TV personality who having lived through the real-life anguish of having a disabled child, has publicly rejected abortion as an option in that situation. Katie Price became a mum at 23. She revealed on the ITV 'Loose Women' programme...
Radical heart surgery 'And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.' (1) It was an unusual clinic letter from the prosthetics...
The church and same-sex attraction Ed Shaw IVP, 2015, £8.99 Pb 160, ISBN 9781783592067 Reviewed by Andrew Sims, emeritus professor of psychiatry, University of Leeds A biblically-based, and very personal, account of how a celibate same-sex attracted Christian works out how to lead his life, accepting that God has his...
Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery Henry Thomas Marsh Orion Books, 2014, £8.99 Pb 278pp, ISBN 9781780225920 Reviewed by B Anthony Bell, emeritus professor of neurosurgery Most of the 25 chapters are dramatised case reports of patients treated in a south...
Finding peace and purpose in a long life Johann Christoph Arnold Plough Publishing, 2013 £8.00 Pb 161pp, ISBN 9780874868982 Reviewed by Mark Cheesman, retired consultant geriatrician This is a good book. It's written from both heart and head, and pastorally explores growing older and dying. It's far from...
A practical & pastoral guide Sioned Evans & Andrew Davison Westcott Foundation/Canterbury Press, 2014. £16.99, Pb 166pp, ISBN 9781848254701 Reviewed by Andrew Fergusson, retired GP & Patron of hospice 23 Palliative care is now arguably a victim of its own success: over-medicalised and in danger of losing its commitment...
Douglas Ellory Pett Lutterworth Press, 2015, £19.00 Pb 194pp, ISBN 9780718893873 Reviewed by Russ Parker, Acorn Healing Trust This is essentially a work of scholarship focusing on a Form Critical approach to the New Testament. At its heart lies the conviction that the original and authentic Gospel message is...
And other questions about God, Jesus and human identity Mark Meynell The Good Book Company, 2015, £3.99 Pb 96pp, ISBN 9781909919051 Reviewed by Julian Churcher, CMF London Staffworker The writer describes humanity in various roles such as thinker, worker, and animal, then demonstrates how inadequate is any self-referential approach, before...
Chris Richards and Liz Jones Evangelical Press, 2014, £7.99 Pb 76pp, ISBN 9780852349991 Reviewed by Pippa Peppiatt, CMF Nurses' Student Staffworker This is a short book, very accessible and well illustrated. It explains puberty, marriage and sex all from the perspective of being wonderfully created by God. I read...
John Wyatt Care and Keswick Resources, 2015, Leader's pack & DVD £22.02, Study booklets 10 for £16.65, Pb 54pp, ISBN 9780905195209 Reviewed by Kathy Myers, emeritus consultant in palliative medicine Talking about death and dying remains a hard thing for many people, including Christians, to do. Finishing Line comprises...
Being engaged but morally distinctive We are now living in a post- Christian society and working in a post-Christian health service. But how are we to live in such a context? It's precisely for this kind of situation that the story of the prophet Daniel is so instructive. When Jerusalem fell...
When celebrity culture imparts wisdom Soap operas can be an obsession. But alongside celebrity gossip they serve a function that morality plays occupied in earlier times. In morality plays characters wrestled with complex choices: between good and evil, right and wrong, the ways of life versus those of death. In popular...
Recognising that hard cases make bad law In February, Northern Ireland Assembly Members debated some highly controversial and emotive amendments to a Justice Bill: amendments to allow for abortion for fatal fetal abnormality, rape and incest. Unlike the rest of the UK, the Abortion Act 1967 does not extend to Northern Ireland....
New cases and stigmatised survivors Regular reports in the autumn and early New Year claimed that West Africa was finally Ebola free after nearly three years, only for another case to crop up within days. (1) Now it seems that earlier fears that survivors may be prone to relapsing illness turn out to be well founded. Research presented at...
The rush to promote abortion as a response to Zika invites serious questions The post-Christian West is fond of believing itself to be a harbinger of moral progress and human betterment. But does this stand the reality test? We have recently seen a plethora of media reports reflecting the eye-watering opportunism...
