09/06/2026
The Master Physician, the Lord Jesus Christ, places importance on patient privacy. The Gospel of Mark records two instances where the Lord took His patients aside, ‘away from the crowd’ and ‘outside the village’ to deal with their medical conditions privately. At times the Lord healed publicly, like the man with the shrivelled hand (Mark 3:1-6), the crippled woman (Luke 13:10-17), and the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15). The Lord demonstrated these examples for us to show that privacy is important in a patient’s management.
Why is privacy important? Almost all patients like to have their history taken and physical examination done in privacy. Patients are shy and hesitant to disclose certain sensitive information about themselves or their disease condition. Good history, physical examination, and counselling can only be done well in privacy.
The Lord helped me to apply this principle of ‘taking aside’ at the office level. In management and administrative work, I learnt to take junior and senior colleagues ‘aside’ to talk to them privately whenever there was a matter that needed to be dealt with. My colleagues respected me for that.
I remember at a farewell party, as I left a workplace, a junior colleague pulled me ‘aside’ and said, ‘we will miss you because you always took us aside’ whenever you saw there was something wrong and talked to us nicely (can also mean ‘toughly’!) and not slamming and embarrassing us in front of everybody.’ That moment I said in my heart, ‘Thank you, Lord, for showing and helping me to follow Your example!’
Further reading: Mark 8:22-26
Prayer: Lord! Help me to respect and consider the people You send to me. Help me reflect You in all I do and say.
Author: Alex Bolek, MBBS, MPH
ICMDA East Africa Regional Secretary, South Sudan
These devotionals are written by Christians in healthcare from around the world and can be found in the collection Doctor's Life Support 5, published in 2023.
