Over the last two decades, I have spent a great deal of time working with and teaching medical students. Extraordinary sponges of knowledge, these eager scholars emerge from the dark cave of incessant testing and classwork (dominating their first two years of medical school) only to be bleary and blinded by the deep complexity of the patients in their charge.
Sated with knowledge, but bereft of experience, they find themselves going down abstruse rabbit holes of inquiry, entertaining inconceivably long lists of diagnoses, and performing the most contortionist of exam maneuvers. After emerging from the patient’s room (usually 15 minutes later than desirable), students find themselves dazed yet delighted. They are finally practicing medicine.
With restrictions on public gatherings lessening across the country, many Catholic dioceses are beginning to reinstate the obligation for the faithful to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days. But will Catholics come back?