To Megan Basham: There Is No Bright Side of Death, and Suffering is Not Your Friend
By Paul M. Dohse, RN, CDP
The Bible states in 1st Corinthians 15:25-26, “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” We note two primary points in this passage: death is God’s enemy, and he will eventually destroy it. Another thought may be noted; more than likely, God does not ordain or create enemies for himself, and while he doesn’t necessarily predetermine everything presently according to his will, we can be sure he predetermines the outcomes he desires. God predetermines happy endings.
Hence, nursing is a good profession because it fights God’s enemy until he returns. That should define nursing. As nurses, we don’t capitulate to God’s enemy with a makeover of any sort. No, death is not a part of life—death is God’s enemy. No, there are not worse things than God’s enemy. No, death is not an “end of life journey.” We make the best of the situation with therapeutic communication and best practice, and do not include any attempt at positive spin. There is no positive spin to improve the so-called “dying process” by calling it, “living well while dying,” No one “dies well,” and there is no such thing as a “good death.” However, fighting God’s enemy to the bitter end could be considered an honorable death, but the honor belongs to the person, not the death. Neither do we honor God’s enemy in any way. At funerals, we honor the life, not the death.
Well, that takes care of various and sundry secular approaches, but this article was inspired by religious nonsense. Megan Basham is a journalist and New York Times bestselling author affiliated with The Daily Wire. She has contributed to major outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Telegraph. She presents herself as an unabashed church lady, aspiring matriarch, and “Christian pitbull” as stated on her X account profile. And unfortunately, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, apparently, in her lungs. Other reports state that she was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer a year ago.
Megan Bashan, according to her online comments, was inspired to write an article in the Washington Post about her diagnosis by John MacArthur sycophant Phil Johnson, who inspired her to do so through a Westminster Confession citation in song form: “What God ordains is always good; His will is just and holy. As He directs my life for me, I follow meek and lowly.” The Westminster Confession was inspired by Martin Luther’s Theology of the Cross, which makes suffering the primary catalyst for a soteriological process. According to Luther, a person only lives according to the Glory Story, (the story of man), or the Cross Story, which is the story of salvation. It’s a matter of which one a person’s life gives glory to; does your life glorify man, or God? According to Luther, suffering is paramount because it diminishes the human glory and makes room for where all glory belongs…with God, and more specifically, his salvation. Luther believed and taught that the wisdom of God is hidden in suffering as exemplified in the crucifixion and suffering of Christ. In fact, Luther, the father of Protestantism, not only taught that salvation is a process rather than a one-time new birth into the family of God, but a salvation paradigm that makes the cross
(salvation) larger and larger as opposed to everything else in life, including life itself.
Hence, the goal of the “Christian” is to have an ever-increasing knowledge of how far we are from God and his character. This increases, more and more, appreciation and gratitude for our salvation. In essence, sanctification, according to Protestantism, is for the sole purpose of reaching a gratitude sufficient for “final justification” at the one “final tribunal” (Calvin). Obviously, any increase in thinking well of humanity would make the cross smaller and diminish gratitude for salvation. In other words, the highest form of moralism is to know how depraved we are leading to perpetual mini resurrections of joy (the Protestant doctrine of Mortification and Vivification). The goal is to know, increasingly, how far we are from God rather than an attempt to be like God (to be like our Father), which is said to be an attempt to “be the gospel rather than proclaiming the gospel.”
But let me give you the thumbnail for all of this: it’s a religious form of Platonism complete with its church state politics. I have written extensively about this for more than 15 years. But keeping with the thesis of this article, the theology propagated by Megan Bashan makes death and suffering our best friend. After all, what’s more important than eternal life, and the means to achieve it? However, always trust Protestant leaders to lead the way for uber illogical contradiction. The late John MacArthur himself, the modern-day prince of preachers, was fond of hermetical paradox and taught theological contradictions as mutually inclusive.
Which brings us back to Megan Bashan and her Protestant cohorts. How is the Protestant culture of celebrity pastors, leaders, authors, and internet influencers NOT the glory story? Oddly enough, Bashan chose to exclusively publish her article, supposedly as a testimony to fellow suffering Christians, in the Washington Post, and the article cannot be accessed without paying for a subscription. I find this utterly bizarre. And how is this type of exclusiveness not a glory story as well? In addition, she mentioned that Phil Johnson got a cameo in the article for all the “GTY [Grace to You program that Johnson oversees] fans” GTY fans? That’s not a glory story? And then there is the whole Protestant conference circuit where parishioners pay for celebrity speakers to wine and dine at 5-star hotels, while preaching for a call to suffering for purification. In fact, John MacArthur spoke on the subject of suffering and evil at the 2008 Resolved Conference, which took place in Palm Springs, California.
This, however, should be no surprise since Luther himself despised human logic:
Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
And if that wasn’t clear enough…
Reason should be destroyed in all Christians. Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom … Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.
And trust me, modern-day Protestantism would make Luther proud in the endeavor to destroy logic. But again, for those of you familiar with Platonism, you know that this view of humanity is Platonist, not Christian.
There is also a familiar contradiction when Protestant leaders get bad news from the doctor. Like most people, they fight the diagnosis tooth and nail with every available medical treatment. Huh? Wouldn’t this, clearly, circumvent God’s work in their lives, reduce humbleness, and increase the glory story according to their theology? According to statements by Basham, she is no exception to this rule; she is pursuing all avenues of treatment. To get rid of the driving force behind sanctification, which is supposedly efficacious for eternal life?
Basham has also shared via social media that her initial reaction to the diagnosis was devastation and she was so depressed that she couldn’t get out of bed. Apparently, this was her initial lack of faith until Phil Johnson showed her the shining light of death and suffering as presented by the Westminster Confession. However, her initial reaction was not only understandable, but totally appropriate. There is no bright side to suffering and death; it is depressing, and an attempt to destroy God’s child.
With all of this said, it is very much like God’s character to bring good out of tragedy, but that doesn’t mean he preordained suffering according to his will. As one person posted on X in response to Basham’s article:
Does God “ordain” cancer itself… or does He sovereignly work through a fallen world where cancer exists?
There’s a difference between saying God can bring purpose through suffering and saying He specifically decreed the disease itself. One emphasizes God’s redeeming power in the midst of evil; the other risks making God the direct author of the very destruction Christ came to overcome when He came and healed those who were sick.
Scripture repeatedly presents sickness and death as enemies connected to the fall, not as “good” creations in themselves. God can absolutely sustain, refine, comfort, and even glorify Himself through suffering. But that does not mean cancer is ordained by God simply because God can work through it.
The cross itself proves this distinction. The murder of Christ was evil in the hands of sinful men, yet God brought salvation through it. God’s sovereignty is seen not by ordaining moral evil, but in overcoming it.
This reasoning makes more sense, especially when we consider things like adolescent cancer units, unless you are of the Protestant persuasion. Protestant leaders have come under fire numerous times for celebrating various tragedies as being “God’s good and holy will.” The Protestant spiritual hero Jonathan Edwards wrote,
The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints in heaven… The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints for ever, as it will show them more remarkably their own salvation, and give them a more lively sense of it… The saints in glory will see the doleful state of the damned, and consider that they deserved the same misery… [It] will give them a more lively sense of the distinguishableness of sovereign grace, and of God’s love to them… When they shall see how terrible the wrath of God is, and shall see that it is executed on those who were their own neighbours, or near relations, it will not cause grief or unhappiness to them, but will cause them to rejoice in the glory of God’s justice.
As a nurse, and fellow human being, my thoughts are with Megan Basham and I bid her God’s speed in winning a medical victory over the cancer that has afflicted her. But cancer is not only our enemy, it is God’s enemy. If it was only our enemy, we could bless it and pray for it as we are instructed to do in Scripture. Cancer is no blessing, and God doesn’t preordain enemies for himself. I applaud her for being proactive against the cancer, but not advocating for illogical theology in the midst.
One should never be illogical to impress the confused.
The True Gospel of Justification by New Birth
“You must be born again.” That’s the gospel. The new birth is an act of God; we can’t birth ourselves. However, we can ask for the free gift. If freewill offerings in the Old Testament were really freewill, and they clearly were, there is freewill.
The new birth is a miracle performed by God through the Holy Spirit that transforms the believer into a literal new creature with ALL THINGS being new. Christ, the first man to combine holiness with humanity, established the new birth through his death and resurrection and was the first fruits of many brethren. That is, literal brethren. The new birth is not just a declaration; it is a literal birth in which the literal seed of God is implanted within the believer. We are literally forever children of God and Christ is our literal brother. One cannot be unborn, and we will never die again. The old us dies with Christ, and the new us is resurrected with him.
The new birth changes our relationship to the law. We are no longer under the law’s condemnation. This is the Spirit’s two uses of the law; to convict the world of sin and the judgement to come, and to sanctify, or continually set God’s children apart from the world. We are no longer under law, but under grace. Stated another way, we are under love and not law. The word, “sin” in the Bible must be qualified in context. Where there is no law (under the condemnation of the law), there is no sin. Believers do not sin, they fail to love. And they do not fail to love because they are still enslaved to sin and the law that empowers sin, but they fail to love as they should because of the flesh’s weakness. We fail to love because of weakness, not enslavement to sin. While our soul is presently saved, redemption is the regeneration of the body that is future.
Salvation is a one-time final act that justifies the believer. A new birth has occurred. Sanctification is the growth of the believer and is mutually exclusive from justification. The two are separate, and any soteriology that conflates the two in any way is a false gospel. Any soteriology that conflates justification and sanctification is a salvation process while the so-called believer is alive, which makes it a works salvation by default. We are justified (always past tense in the Bible) because we are saved. We are saved by the new birth, which is a one-time and final act by God through the Spirit. Sanctification is a process in which we learn to “say no to sin” because we are no longer enslaved to sin and are able to do so. To any degree that justification is not final, we are to that degree under law, and to that degree unregenerate.
Furthermore, our failure to love has nothing to do with condemnation or the law but can bring family chastisement from a loving father. And remember, the Bible states that love fulfills the law.
Worship is not confined to a place or time. The believer’s whole life, and every detail, is an act of worship. That is because our bodies are temples, and we are the holy priests of those temples. The priesthood of believers is not a mere declaration, we are holy priests as a state of being. We are justified as a state of being. We are righteous as a state of being.
This is why we meet in homes…that’s what literal family members do. Home fellowships are a statement concerning the true gospel.
paul
The Protestant False Gospel of Double Imputation
RC Sproul loved it. John MacArthur Jr. loved it, and this is a post about why double imputation is a false gospel. First, it is fundamentally false because it defines righteousness as perfect law-keeping. The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians for the sole purpose of refuting this idea. His argument? Abraham was declared righteous 400 years before the implementation of the law through Moses. Why then, the law? Paul states that it WAS a guardian (not a “tutor”) that protected us until “faith” (Christ) came. Before Christ came, sin was imputed to the law, and then Christ came to end the law. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4, NKJV). Notice that Paul stated the following: Christ was the end of the law, FOR righteousness. Clearly, the law does not define righteousness, but John Calvin et al spilled an ocean of ink making that case.
So, what does make us righteous? Well, 1st John is clear on that. We are righteous by God’s seed being within us. We are righteous by new birth, not perfect law-keeping by anyone. Who keeps the law is not the issue; the law is the issue. The second fatal error of Protestantism is a single perspective on the law; according to Protestantism, the role of the law is not changed by the new birth. Much more on that later in this post.
The fundamental premise of Protestantism is the idea of double imputation. Since perfect law-keeping defines righteousness, instead of God’s seed being within us (righteousness by new birth), an ongoing fulfillment of the law must be perpetually imputed to us through the “active obedience” of Christ. Our past sins were blotted out through Christ’s death (his passive obedience), but that is not enough for us to be declared righteous. We must have our sins forgiven, but we must also have perfect law-keeping added as well for us to be…and don’t miss this…”declared righteous.” Yes, in Protestantism, you are not righteous as a state of being, you are only declared righteous through Christ’s perpetual double imputation of his passive obedience and active obedience. And since “Christians” must be forgiven of “present sin” due to imperfect law-keeping, they must continue to “partake in Christ” through the “ordinary means of grace” (read, ordinary means of salvation) via Protestant church ritual. Hence, salvation is an ongoing “process” that can only be obtained by partaking in the “ordinary means of grace” found only in Protestant church membership.
It is an overt denial and redefining of the biblical new birth. More on that later, as well. Suffice to say for now that this one fatal flaw concerning a single perspective on the law (our relationship to the law is not changed via the new birth) causes Protestantism to redefine every biblical concept from Genesis to Revelation. It is a massive multi-layered error. To support its error, Protestantism must redefine the Trinity and even redefine how we read and interpret our Bibles.
The Bible is clear, Christ’s death, and nothing additional, ushered in righteousness.
Colossians 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
The law was nailed to the cross resulting in a circumcision of the heart without hands. Note that when we die with Christ, it necessarily leads to God resurrecting us. Also note that ALL trespasses are forgiven, not just past trespasses. This is because where there is no law, being nailed to the cross, there is NO sin: Romans 4:15, Romans 5:13, Romans 7:8. This negates the Protestant concept of “present sin” because where there is no law, being nailed to the cross, there is no sin, present or otherwise. Hence, Protestantism replaces God’s resurrection in salvation with Christ’s active obedience to the law, which by the way, is nowhere to be found in Scripture as a soteriological concept. Righteousness by new birth is replaced with the idea that, “We have the righteousness of Christ” as supplied by his passive and active obedience to a law that was ended for the sake of righteousness (Romans 10:4). Make no doubt about it, Protestantism replaces God’s circumcision without hands with Christ’s active obedience, and thereby distorts trinitarian salvation. Also…
Romans 5:18 So then, as through one offense the result was condemnation to all mankind, so also through one act of righteousness the result was justification of life to all mankind. 19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
Obviously, we were not made righteous by two acts, passive and active obedience, we were made righteous by Christ’s one act of obedience to the cross. Furthermore, I say “two acts” from a technical perspective, but Protestantism would imply that Christ’s active obedience would be a massive list of acts in obedience to the law for purposes of imputing righteousness. This is a morass of elementary error.
With all of this said, it doesn’t mean believers are not under any kind of law whatsoever. But, it does mean that we are no longer under the law’s condemnation and subsequent enslavement. Our freedom from enslavement to the law is not a mere “forensic declaration” based on Christ’s continued double imputation, but a state of being. Believers fall short of perfect law-keeping because we are “weak,” not enslaved. Our failure to love is a matter of the Father’s chastisement, not condemnation. The law plays a different role in the life of a born-again believer.
paul
Why Predestination is Wrong: Part 1
Well, I guess it is official. After many years of thought and research, I am taking a position on predestination. Yes, for several years, I was a Calvinist, until I discovered that Calvinism is Progressive Justification and redefines the biblical new birth. So, I became skeptical of predestination because of the source, and the matter of priority; let’s get the gospel right and then worry about election. This is the focus of my book, It’s Not About Election; Why Calvinism is “Another Gospel”
How did I come to this conclusion? Some scripture is stand-alone truth. In other words, if a passage of scripture is absolutely objective in its context, all other scripture must bow to that plain meaning in order for us to claim the Bible is consistent and without error. If a Bible passage seems to contradict another passage that is plain in its meaning, the other passage that is more ambiguous needs more research. This is similar to an interpretive method called Occam’s razor:
Occam’s razor is a problem-solving principle suggesting that when faced with competing explanations for the same phenomenon, the simplest one—requiring the fewest assumptions—is usually correct. Often called the “law of parsimony,” it is a heuristic used in science and philosophy to cut away unnecessary complexity rather than a strict law guaranteeing truth.
Key Aspects of Occam’s Razor
Origin: Credited to 14th-century friar William of Ockham, though the idea dates back to Aristotle, who favored demonstrations using fewer postulates.
Philosophy & Science: In philosophy, it helps decide between hypotheses with equal explanatory power. In science, it is an abductive heuristic for model development, favoring theories with fewer entities or causes, famously used by Newton and Einstein.
With this being said, remember that good-old-fashioned commonsense is also a sound biblical hermeneutic.
Predestination is error because the gospel is good news. The gospel, according to the Bible, is intrinsically good news for everyone who hears it. That cannot be the case if some people are predestined to eternal damnation. In all fairness, the word euaggelion means “good message,” which could mean that it is a good message, but not necessarily for everyone. However, in many places in the Bible, this good message is also meant to be “preached,” which is the Greek word kerusso meaning “herald,” “proclaim,” and “publish.”
Hence, it is meant to be good news to all who hear it. Now, playing the devils advocate and totally overthinking the word, couldn’t the prefix, eu (good) merely mean, “holy” or of good moral character? No. Those are different Greek words:
The Greek prefix eu- (meaning good, well, or pleasant) acts specifically as an adverbial modifier indicating positive quality, ease, or correctness, unlike adjectives like agathos (morally good) or kalos (beautiful/noble). It often implies “happiness,” “abundance,” or “truth,” frequently serving as the direct opposite of the prefix dys- (bad/difficult).
Key Differences and Characteristics of the Prefix Eu-:
Adverbial Function: While eu- means “good,” it functions more accurately as “well” or “happily,” indicating how something is done or its state of being (e.g., euphemism = speaking well/pleasantly).
Opposite of Dys-: Eu- is specifically paired against dys-, emphasizing not just morality, but functional prosperity or normalcy, such as euthanasia (good/painless death) vs. dysthanasia.
Abundance and Ease: Eu- can denote something is “well-developed,” “thorough,” or “abundant,” such as eutrophic (nutrient-rich).
Meaning “True”: In scientific contexts, eu- can signify “true” or “proper,” as in eukaryote (true nucleus).
Common Eu- Words vs. Generic “Good”:
Eulogy: Good speech (praise).
Euphoria: Good/happy bearing (intense joy).
Euphony: Good sound (pleasing).
In contrast, other Greek “good” words (like agathos) usually describe a noun’s moral nature, whereas eu- focuses on the functional, pleasant, or fortunate state of the thing being described.
Notice the words with the eu prefix: eulogy, meaning praise. Euphoria, meaning elation. Euphony, a sound that pleases, like music that uplifts. From the viewpoint of heaven, the gospel is a message that is meant to bring joy to all that hear it. Luke 2: 9,10 brings these ideas together:
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
Full stop. The message is a joyful message to “all people.” I am not going to bore you with more Greek words, but here, “all” means everyone and everything with no exceptions (all inclusive), and “people” means all of humanity, and Christ was born “unto” all people, or all of humanity. So, at the very least, you can totally reject the whole limited atonement thing. And as I have stated many times before, salvation is not atonement to begin with. Salvation is an ending of sin, not a mere covering. Furthermore, Christ came to end the law; so, who is born under law? Answer: everyone.
In addition, if Calvinism is wrong about the gospel, and it is, and wrong about limited atonement, and it is, it can also be wrong about predestination, and it is.
The gospel is meant to be a message of joy to everyone who hears it because it is defined that way and meant to be perceived that way by every human being that hears the message. That couldn’t be true if some people are predestined to reject it. How is it potentially good news for them? The end of WWII was joyful news to Americans and Europeans, but not the Germans. It was only bad news to the Germans because of the way they thought about the news and the things that formulated their thinking. I believe the same to be true about the gospel; people reject it because of the way life has formulated their thinking, not because God predetermined the news to be of a different substance to different people. The gospel is good news to everyone whether they receive it that way or not.
So, what about all of the Bible passages that Calvinists use to make a case for predestination? That will be the subject of the future parts to this post.
paul
Metaphysics, America, Long-Term Care, and The Cellphone Crusades
An AI Overview gives us a good definition of Metaphysics, it is the foundational branch of philosophy investigating the fundamental nature of reality, existence, and being. Metaphysics has several different fields of study that all contribute to the comprehensive idea of metaphysics. One is Ontology, the study of reality and how it is perceived by mankind, while the study of man is Anthropology.
Hence, activities in the world are all driven by the prevailing presuppositions concerning mankind. In other words, because ideology drives all human action, what people believe about people determines the activities we experience in our world, and is documented as history.
America is an idea that turned world history upside-down. Until America shows up in the 18th century, the prevailing metaphysic concerning mankind follows: humanity is unable, and with that comes the supposed paramount problem with humanity; man does not know he is unable and doesn’t really understand reality. Therefore, mankind must be ruled by overseers that understand the inability of man, and through this rule can reduce evil in the world as much as possible. For the most part, these overseers were religious authorities.
But, there has always been a primary problem: disagreement between various and sundry overseers about the best way to control mankind based on different philosophies, and in most cases, the most powerful god. This disagreement is the source of ALL wars.
America came along and said, No, mankind is able. No, mankind is able to understand reality. No, the sole purpose of mankind is not to support governments or religions that rule over mankind, but rather, the sole purpose of governments is to enable people to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Until this idea came along and took root, the world was dominated by religious wars such as The Crusades. Governments were primarily controlled by religious authorities and their competing beliefs that their god was the best hope for the world. And since the survival of mankind is at stake, these were beliefs worth fighting over.
Hence, America’s separation of church and state. Yes, all people should be free to worship and follow the god of their choosing as part of their right to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but the god of their choosing does not have the right to rule over others regardless of the dogmatic belief that their god is the only hope for the world. Therefore, after the birth of America and its outrageous idea of Individual Self-Rule, religious wars all but vanished from history. However, the inability of man doctrine dies hard, and Communism filled the void in the 18th century.
With all of this being said, lesser religious crusades will always take place. Many well-meaning Christians, as well as Muslims, believe that America would be much better off if they ruled over the American populous via their god’s doctrine, and pursue such goals politically. Of course, this is a rule by opiniated proxy until the god of their choice actually shows up.
Nevertheless, we must talk about a god who has, apparently, already taken control of American culture and its followers are incredulous that many have not received the memo. We are talking about the Cellphone god.
First, let’s examine the Cellphone god. The Cellphone god followers display devotion that Jesus and Alah can only dream of. Statistics tell us that Cellphone god followers check in with him, on average, every 5 minutes. And engagement time? Cellphone followers spend at least 6 hours a day intently focused on Cellphone’s illumined face, while the average American parent spends 1-3 hours a day with their children, while also engaging with Cellphone every 5 minutes. This devotion is only surpassed by followers of Moloch who sacrificed their children outright. And Cellphone gives new meaning to one’s god being “with them,” as you can bet Cellphone is always with his followers at any moment during the day.
But, the devotion doesn’t stop there. Studies show that followers of Cellphone sacrifice a significant amount of cognitive ability by passively receiving constant information that requires little, or no critical thinking. Studies show that this results in a reduction of cognitive capacity, focus, and memory. Furthermore, followers sacrifice sleep because the illumination of Cellphone’s glorious face effects melatonin and results in insomnia to various degrees. Indeed, no followers of any god are more willing to take up their cross and follow Cellphone daily.
Historically, Cellphone arrived in America circa 2000 through missionaries like The Church of Motorola. Before then, we can only assume that American culture was worse than the Dark Ages, as set against the dire need for Cellphone in our day. Virtually no one can imagine life without him. History documents the dearth of people being ignored in lieu of gazing into the glorious face of Cellphone.
So, what effect has Cellphone had on healthcare? Does any corner of American culture dare to be more important than Cellphone?
In the early days, indeed, the healthcare community discriminated against Cellphone followers. Hence, a crusade was necessary, primarily led by Gen Z. Shockingly, especially in Long-Term care (LTC), healthcare workers were forced to be separated from Cellphone for as long as 12 hours, while only being allowed to engage with Cellphone on 15-minute breaks and 30-60 minutes during lunch. A fierce crusade soon followed, and the reasoning for this discrimination by LTC was rejected with prejudice.
LTC facilities argued that engagement with Cellphone during care circumvented therapeutic communication and safety. One consideration under therapeutic communication touted by the LTC infidels was the idea that engaging with Cellphone, while also engaging with a LTC resident, was not active listening, which is an element of therapeutic communication. In addition, the LTC infidels suggested that Cellphone distraction was a safety issue and presented temptation towards Hippa violations. Also, engaging with Cellphone during care presents the appearance of diminished concern for the resident. In other words, Cellphone is more important, or equally important as set against the care for others.
Whatever the reasons were, LTC administrators and Directors of Nursing were conquered by the crusade in a relatively short time, but vestiges of conflict still remain where care is not compromised. Like the Japanese soldiers isolated on islands in the Pacific during WWII and did not receive the news that the war had ended, some in healthcare today have not received the memo, and will suffer the wrath of Gen Z.
This is because no human being, even those under our care, are more important than Cellphone. He alone is worthy of all altruistic sacrifices.
Paul M. Dohse, RN
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