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There are lots of influences in our lives, each begging us to trust them. If we’re wise, we only follow those who can prove they are worthy of our trust.
Long ago, when Dr. Evan Kane asked people to trust him, he proved himself in a most unusual way.
Even though the medical community was booming in research and growth at the turn of the 20th Century, patients undergoing surgery – even minor surgeries – were subjected to general anesthesia. Dr. Kane believed that ether was being employed far too often when less dangerous “local anesthetics” could be used instead.
Unfortunately, most of the medical community disagreed with him. Those select few who were intrigued by his theory would only be won over if they could see his theory put to the test.
But who would permit such an experimental surgery to be conducted on them?
Finally, in February of 1921, a patient was found who was willing to undergo a surgery using only local anesthesia. At long last, Dr. Kane, the 60-year old Chief Surgeon of Kane Summit Hospital, would get a chance to test his theory.
The operation – a simple one as surgeries go – was a common appendectomy. By this time in medicine’s history, appendectomies had been performed thousands of times. But this one would be very different for two reasons.
First, Dr. Kane would sedate the patient using local anesthesia instead of general anesthesia. The outcome of this surgery would be a “make-or-break” moment for his theory.
Second, the patient would be Dr. Kane.
That’s right. Dr. Kane tested his theory on himself!
On the day of the surgery, he was propped up on an operating table with a mirror hung over him. Three doctors supervised the operation…just in case of an emergency. After dispensing the local anesthesia, Dr. Kane made the necessary incision on his abdomen. Skillfully, he located the tissue and removed it from his intestine. With the lion share of the operation completed, assistants sutured his wounds.
The success of that surgery would forever change how doctors performed surgical procedures.
By the way, this operation was neither Dr. Kane’s first self-surgery, nor his last. In 1919, he amputated one of his own fingers, and in 1932, at the age of 70, he performed an operation on himself to correct a hernia resulting from an injury sustained while riding a horse.
Dr. Kane’s courageous move was brilliant: the doctor became a patient in order to convince patients to trust the doctor.
Isn’t that similar to what God did through Jesus Christ in the Incarnation? God wanted His people to trust Him, so He became one of them, hoping to capture their trust and love. In Hebrews 4:14-16, the writer puts it this way:
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Those who know Jesus know God can be trusted.
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Topics Illustrated Include:
Assurance
Courage
Determination
Doctor
God’s Plan
Incarnation
Jesus
Risk
Sacrificial
Surgery
Trust
Trusting God
(Resource cataloged by David R Smith)
