Episode 269
Whole Church Job Fair Encore: Insights from a Chief Science Officer
The primary focus of this episode is the insightful dialogue between Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell as they engage with Andy Walsh, the Chief Science Officer at Health Monitoring Systems. Our discussion delves into the intersection of faith and science, examining whether significant theological topics discussed within seminaries and churches bear relevance to Andy's daily professional experiences. Throughout this episode, we explore the nuances of public health, particularly in light of contemporary challenges, and how the church community can play a supportive role. By examining the practical implications of faith in the realm of science, we aim to foster a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of these fields. Join us as we navigate these compelling themes in a manner that underscores the importance of integrating theological discourse with occupational realities.
In this compelling encore episode of the Whole Church Job Fair series, Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell engage in a profound discussion with Andy Walsh, Chief Science Officer at Health Monitoring Systems and co-host of Systematic Geekology. The conversation delves into the intersection of science and faith, particularly examining how significant theological topics addressed in churches and seminaries manifest in the professional realm of public health. Walsh articulates the complexities and challenges of integrating scientific principles with theological beliefs, especially in a landscape where public health has become increasingly scrutinized.
Throughout the episode, Walsh shares his experiences navigating the nuances of public health, emphasizing the importance of understanding systemic issues that affect health outcomes in various communities. He discusses the vital role that faith communities can play in addressing these disparities, advocating for a greater awareness of how theological discussions can inform and enhance public health initiatives. The dialogue serves as a reminder of the necessity for churches to actively engage with public health matters, fostering a deeper understanding of how faith can drive social responsibility and community care.
As the episode unfolds, listeners are invited to consider their own roles within their faith communities and how they can contribute to a collective effort in promoting health equity. Walsh's insights challenge the audience to appreciate the often-overlooked work of public health professionals and to recognize the valuable contributions that faith communities can make in supporting these efforts. Ultimately, this episode calls for a renewed commitment to bridging the gap between faith and science, encouraging a collaborative approach to addressing the pressing health challenges faced by society today.
Takeaways:
- In this episode, Andy Walsh elucidates the importance of public health roles and their impact on community well-being.
- The dialogue emphasizes how theological discussions can shape our understanding of daily professional responsibilities and ethical decision-making.
- Joshua and TJ explore the intersection of faith and science, highlighting common misconceptions and the potential for collaboration.
- Listeners gain insights into how public health efforts can be better supported by church communities through education and outreach initiatives.
- Andy shares personal reflections on his work, showcasing the emotional toll of being involved in public health during crises such as the pandemic.
- The episode encourages a more profound appreciation for public health professionals and their often unseen contributions to society.
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Check out Andy and Will's chat on the Systematic Geekology YouTube Page:
https://www.youtube.com/live/ERzlnBWd-zY?si=6-elmDboDPfIURqB
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Farmer, you are working for a table full of bounty.
Speaker A:Painter, with each color you are teaching us to see.
Speaker B:Nurse.
Speaker A:Yours are the healing hands that touch the poor and broken.
Speaker A:May God's kingdom come on earth.
Speaker A:His will be done.
Speaker C:Ephesians 4, 25, 29 the Christian Standard Bible say, therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor.
Speaker C:Because we are members of one another, be angry and do not sin.
Speaker C:Don't let the sun go down on your anger and don't give the devil an opportunity.
Speaker C:Let the thief no longer steal.
Speaker C:Instead he is to do honest work with his own hands that he has something to share with anyone in need.
Speaker C:No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear.
Speaker C:In the book of Ephesians, St.
Speaker C:Paul is explaining what it means to be the church.
Speaker C:And before this pericope, Paul wrote that the church is to work together in all of our different roles.
Speaker C:Here, St.
Speaker C:Paul insists that the church builds one another up in word deeds and he unties our occupational work with to this idea.
Speaker C:Dr.
Speaker C:Andy Walsh, do you think the way we present ourselves in work ties into the idea of building one another up?
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker D:I mean, everyone you know who has some kind of employment or some kind of vocation.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Needs encouragement, needs support in that.
Speaker D:And so, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker D:I think that's part of being part of the body of Christ is enabling each other to live out our vocations.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, Good stuff, good stuff.
Speaker A:Come be close to us Lord have mercy on us, Lord, please put your hands all night day by day.
Speaker B:Hey, guys, welcome to the Whole Church podcast.
Speaker B:Back again with the Whole Church job fair.
Speaker B:It's gonna be a fun one.
Speaker B:Today we're doing the encore, right?
Speaker B:We already finished the series up and you're all.
Speaker B:Wait, what?
Speaker B:Another one?
Speaker B:You guys know we do this with all of our series.
Speaker B:I don't even remember when we started doing series, but it's a thing we do now, apparently.
Speaker B:And after each series, we like to do like a crossover with our other podcast, Systematic Geekology, because we like that show and we want to sponsor them also.
Speaker B:So today we have a really special one.
Speaker B:It's going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker B:One of the other hosts of Systematic Ecology is here with us, Andy Walsh, the one and only.
Speaker B:He's the Chief Science Officer at the Health Monitoring Systems in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Speaker B:He's also the author of Faith across the Multiverse.
Speaker B:And like we mentioned, he's one of the hosts of Systematic Geekology.
Speaker B:And this episode is going to be cross posted over there too.
Speaker B:So you guys, if you're on systematic ecology, listening to this and you're like, whoa, what's this?
Speaker B:You can hear the rest of the whole Church Job fair series link down below.
Speaker B:I think it's a lot of fun.
Speaker B:So, Andy, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker B:Welcome to the show, man.
Speaker D:You're welcome.
Speaker D:Thanks for having me.
Speaker B:Yeah, man.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And of course, we couldn't have this show without the one who invented language.
Speaker B:We wouldn't even know the word show or podcast if it wasn't for the one and only T.J.
Speaker B:tiberius Juan Blackwell.
Speaker B:Welcome to your show.
Speaker C:Thanks.
Speaker C:If you're listening to this, you should check out the Onazzow Podcast Network website.
Speaker C:The link is below for shows that are like ours.
Speaker C:And if you're already listening on the YouTube channel, hit, like hit subscribe pretty please.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I think that's generally a good idea.
Speaker B:But another thing I think is a really good idea.
Speaker B:My favorite form of unity actually is it comes in the form of a holy sacrament, that which is silliness.
Speaker B:So we always start our show off with a silly question.
Speaker B:And if you've listened throughout this series, we did the same silly question.
Speaker B:We got a definitive answer from Brandon Knight.
Speaker B:And now we're going back to get a scientific answer, a very well researched answer to this question.
Speaker B:You know, when we asked our Facebook group, what are the biggest theological questions that the church and seminaries have been arguing about?
Speaker B:Samantha Perez, a good friend of ours, threw out is the hot dog a sandwich?
Speaker B:And a lot of people voted for her option, so we had to include it somewhere.
Speaker B:So here it is, part of our silly questions.
Speaker B:Andy, please let us know.
Speaker B:Scientifically, is a hot dog a sandwich?
Speaker D:Well, how do you follow up someone who's already given the definitive answer, being.
Speaker B:More definitive, you didn't hear it, did you?
Speaker C:If you didn't hear it, then I.
Speaker B:Don'T even know what it was.
Speaker B:Floors here, we haven't recorded that yet.
Speaker D:Well, okay, so we're doing time travel, of course.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:You know, it's meat inside of bread.
Speaker D:If you want to call it a sandwich.
Speaker D:I have no quarrels with that.
Speaker C:Good answer.
Speaker C:Good answer.
Speaker C:In what ways, if any, do you think this question could be relevant to your life?
Speaker D:I don't know.
Speaker D:I mean, whenever this comes up, it makes me think of the John Hodgman podcast, because that seems to be the question that launched that whole thing.
Speaker D:So, yeah, I don't know, maybe someday we'll all be called upon to make judgments on arbitrary questions that hinge on definitions and semantics rather than actual science.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, those are the important things in life, I think, perhaps.
Speaker B:Or maybe the completely unimportant things.
Speaker B:Hard to tell.
Speaker B:But for the purposes of this series, we're not just doing a hot dog podcast, unfortunately, but what we are doing that I think is really cool, we are doing a series, or did a series now, on people's occupational work, their daily lives, to see whether or not this stuff that we're arguing about is actually important to regular people in their regular lives or not so regular people in their not so regular lives.
Speaker B:You know, however you want to take it.
Speaker B:A lot of our listeners, though, they're pastors, theologians, church leaders, podcasters, and we think it's important for our church leaders to hear this stuff.
Speaker B:And I think they can benefit from hearing and learning from people who are in other occupations.
Speaker B:So, yeah, that's why we're doing this for our core.
Speaker B:We decided to act like we knew our audience for once.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:For church listeners that may not know you from Systematic Ecology, Andy, would you mind filling them in with your history with the church and your book, Faith across the Multiverse, and some of what you like about what our other podcast, Systematic Ecology, does?
Speaker D:Oh, sure.
Speaker D:So, short, easy question.
Speaker D:History of the church.
Speaker D:I mean, I grew up attending church pretty much, you know, for as long as I can remember in New Jersey and then other places.
Speaker D:I've traveled mostly in Western Pennsylvania after that.
Speaker D:Also went to Christian schools from kindergarten through high school, and then was involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as an undergrad and a grad student.
Speaker D:So, yeah, lots of.
Speaker D:Lots of history with the church.
Speaker D:And then, you know, my science background studied biology as an undergrad at Carnegie Mellon, studied molecular microbiology and immunology for my PhD at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Speaker D:And after a postdoc in computational biology, I've been working at Health Monitoring Systems, a public health software company in western Pennsylvania, for over 16 years now.
Speaker D:And Faith across the Multiverse was a book I wrote a few years ago now about the intersection of Christian faith, science, and particularly the vocabulary and the concepts of science and nerdy pop culture.
Speaker D:And that's how I got connected with Will Rose and the Systematic Ecology podcast.
Speaker D:We were operating at very similar interfaces there of nerdy pop culture and Christian theology.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Plus Will just needed another comic book friend that really liked the X Men.
Speaker B:I think that was also a thing.
Speaker D:Yeah, I'm happy to apply.
Speaker C:Well, see, the Problem is, Will is too young of a soul.
Speaker C:All the young comic book fans don't read X Men.
Speaker B:I feel like I'm old enough I should read X Men.
Speaker D:I just don't.
Speaker C:Yeah, he did.
Speaker C:He, you know, was just.
Speaker C:He wants to connect with the young people, and the young people don't like X Men.
Speaker B:That's weird.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker C:I don't know what it is.
Speaker B:You know what?
Speaker B:It's because they watched the Hulu series Runaways and it was too good.
Speaker B:Now they don't care about X Men.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:That's compared to the Fox movies.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So this is our whole church job.
Speaker C:Fair.
Speaker C:So before getting into, you know, the business, if someone never heard of what it is you do, Andy, how would you describe your job, and how would you address anyone interested in pursuing your job as a career?
Speaker D:Yeah, well, frankly, I'm always surprised when anybody has heard of what we do.
Speaker D:So I work for public health software company that provides software that does something called syndromic surveillance.
Speaker D:So we've all learned probably way more than we wanted to about traditional public health surveillance over the past five years, where people get diagnosed with something specific.
Speaker D:And a doctor or lab or pharmacy that makes that diagnosis notifies the public health department, and they keep track of those people with specific diagnoses.
Speaker D:Syndromic surveillance is about monitoring things at the population level before people are diagnosed.
Speaker D:So when you walk into the emergency department or your doctor's office, you know why you went there, you have a fever, you fell, and you worried you broke your arm, you were in some sort of car accident.
Speaker D:You know you were having chest pain, chest pains or pain in your arm, and you're not sure if you're having a heart attack or an anxiety attack or some other kind of thing.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:All the different reasons people seek health care.
Speaker D:They know why they're there.
Speaker D:They don't know what they have.
Speaker D:That's why they're going to see a medical professional.
Speaker D:But they can describe something about what they're experiencing.
Speaker D:So we get that data, somebody has to type that up, that reason that you walked in the door.
Speaker D:Somebody types that up, and we get it typically within five minutes of the person arriving at the healthcare facility.
Speaker D:So we're monitoring these things in real time, and we're adding up, okay, in the past hour, how many people came in with fever, came in with worries about chest pain.
Speaker D:And if there are larger than expected numbers in a particular area, we'll notify the relevant public health department.
Speaker D:And then our software provides them with tools so they can follow up and see is there something going on here that we need to worry about?
Speaker D:Do we need to keep an eye on this further?
Speaker D:Is this something that we already knew about, whatever the case may be, but they have then the tools to do their actual public health work, so we're trying to help support them, cut down on the manual work that they have to do, and also maybe hopefully identify things as early as possible, perhaps even before there's an opportunity to diagnose folks.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And if somebody wanted to get into that kind of work themselves, where would they start?
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker D:So that's a good question, because I don't know very many people who have jobs exactly like mine, but certainly there are lots of public health folks who use syndromic surveillance software.
Speaker D:And so if you wanted to get into a career in public health, typically public health degree is a, is a graduate level degree.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So you might.
Speaker D:There's a variety of things you could study at the undergraduate level, biology would be one of them.
Speaker D:But other things, you know, public policy, some kind of pre law thing might even be relevant.
Speaker D:You know, public health sits at the intersection of science, but also public policy and politics and so forth.
Speaker D:And so there's lots of those kinds of degrees that might be worthwhile as well.
Speaker D:Some schools even have undergraduate degrees in public health that you can major in.
Speaker D:So something like that.
Speaker D:And then, you know, typically you'll need to go to a school of public health for a master's degree, master's of public health or something along those lines, if you're looking to get into then working for the public health department.
Speaker D:And there are public health departments in your state, certainly many counties or large municipal areas.
Speaker D:So someplace like the city of New York has their own public health department or the city of Los Angeles, it kind of depends.
Speaker D:But there are probably lots of public health departments in your general area.
Speaker D:And so that would probably be the career path.
Speaker B:Cool, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker B:So I know we've discussed this several different podcasts.
Speaker B:Plenty of places, plenty of other people, probably smarter people than me anyway, have been talking about this.
Speaker B:But how would you describe some of the challenges today when it concerns integrating faith and science and why so many people see them as polarizing in today's times.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker D:So I think right now there's several different reasons why folks see those things at odds.
Speaker D:Traditionally there were concerns about, and I say traditionally, that's kind of a short horizon.
Speaker D:In the past hundred years in the United States and in Western cultures, there's been this concern about whether the findings of science in relation to geology, evolutionary biology, cosmology, whether those conflict with the creation accounts in Genesis or not and other creation accounts in Scripture, and on questions like how old is the Earth and how old is the universe and what is the sequence in which things came to exist.
Speaker D:So those are kind of long standing issues, again, in that, by long standing, kind of in that past hundred, 150 years that folks saw as a source of tension, conflict, or at least discrepancy.
Speaker D:Much more recently, we've seen that conservative Christian communities took a very different approach to topics of climate change and public health responses to the pandemic than some other communities.
Speaker D:And so there's just kind of that sense that the scientific world is trying to control us, take away our freedoms, take away our liberties, tell us how to live our lives at a very granular level, whether that's what kind of car to drive, what kind of food to eat, what to do with our trash, what to do with our faces, how to breathe.
Speaker D:People feel like all of those things, they're being told what to do and how to do it and when to do it and where to do it and why to do it.
Speaker D:And you know, there are a lot of reasons why you might object to that, but certainly it seems to have clustered around religious communities, probably, possibly also because of that long standing uncertainty about whether scientific institutions had their best interest in mind, and possibly also because some of the, you know, some of the restrictions came around gathering in churches and so forth.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So has it, has it ever impacted your work personally?
Speaker D:That's a good question.
Speaker D:Yes and no.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:It hasn't stopped me from doing my job or anything like that.
Speaker D:It is certainly disheartening to see the people in the community that I felt like I grew up in, felt like I was part of, take a very different view of these things, despite the fact that I got into this line of work because of the values that were instilled in me during those formative years.
Speaker D:In hindsight, it's interesting to think about the fact that when I told people that I wanted to get into public health and studying infectious diseases, sort of in that high school, pre college era, whenever I mentioned that to people in church, they're always like, why are you doing that?
Speaker D:Why wouldn't you go cure cancer?
Speaker D:So I don't know if there's anything to that that may have been just kind of a casual, like, I don't understand what you're talking about, but I know cancer.
Speaker D:And so that to me that's important, or there might have been Something more substantial there as a kind of hint about how conservative Christian communities felt about public health and infectious disease prevention and so forth.
Speaker D:Certainly discouraging at that point a little bit, and has only gotten more discouraging in recent years to see that kind of attitude.
Speaker D:But it doesn't, so far, prevent me from doing work.
Speaker D:That said, very recently, you know, through a chain of events, right.
Speaker D:We've.
Speaker D:We are having projects that work canceled and having to let employees go and having to see the public health departments that we work with change directions and shut down projects and let people go on their end as well, because we have, you know, made decisions at the national level about changes in priorities in public health.
Speaker D:So in that sense, you know, and that has, you know, has a lot of religious motivations, or at least people are citing their religious beliefs for why they have those priorities.
Speaker D:So, yeah, I guess in that sense, in a very, very recent sense, like in the past several weeks, it has started to have more of a tangible impact on my job.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I think all of those people just really thought that you could cure cancer if you felt like it.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Like, that's.
Speaker C:To them, you were just saying you don't want to.
Speaker C:I think that's what happens a lot.
Speaker B:Of the time, anyway.
Speaker B:I don't think that's it.
Speaker B:But, you know, Andy's smart enough.
Speaker B:He probably could if he had a little bit of free time.
Speaker C:That's exactly what I'm saying.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker B:That's a good point.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:No, but more seriously, I think when we get at some of this tension, a lot of it, I think, goes back to the Scopes Monkey trial in the US which was all constructed for the sake of being polarizing, more or less.
Speaker B:Like, if you actually look into it, the teacher even said, like, I'm not sure, I might have taught evolution.
Speaker B:They just wanted to have a legal case about what we could or couldn't teach in schools.
Speaker B:That that's all the whole reason that happened.
Speaker B:And what's interesting is if you go back before the Scopes trial, even in America, the fundamentalist Christian documents, they're like the most conservative documents, like, Possible.
Speaker B:Some of the authors there were Christian evolutionists.
Speaker B:So it really wasn't until that legal case came up that some of this tension started being felt.
Speaker B:So a lot of this is pretty recent.
Speaker B:Like you mentioned, Andy.
Speaker B:And then I think there's also something underpinning it a little bit further, where people, in their faith, interest in life in general, they want to just have solid, clear answers, and a lot of conservative pastors preach this kind of idea of the Bible where it is completely authoritative and completely literal, inerrant, you know, all that stuff.
Speaker B:And they say this is the answer.
Speaker B:It's all black and white.
Speaker B:Whereas science doesn't do that, which I don't think faith does that either.
Speaker B:But if you grew up in that kind of faith, you want everything to be that way.
Speaker B:Science usually does this thing where, like, here's what we think right now, but we're going to keep testing it, and if it's wrong, we're going to say it's wrong and come up with a new hypothesis.
Speaker B:And a lot of the times it comes up with stuff like, hey, a lot of what we've been doing is harmful to the earth.
Speaker B:A lot of this is like.
Speaker B:And people don't want to feel bad and people just want to clear answers.
Speaker B:And that's just not how life works.
Speaker B:So I think maybe it's less qualm against science and more qualm against reality.
Speaker D:Perhaps, or at least complexity.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:In the.
Speaker D:In the ways in which reality is complex.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:But speaking of that kind of polarization stuff, I think it's interesting because also on our other podcast, this Medic Ecology that all of us are a part of, we have a theme this year on polarization, and you contributed a lot to the different episode ideas we've been doing over on that show this year, such as the Magic versus Science, Jackie Chan versus Bruce Lee, other ideas that haven't even been released yet.
Speaker B:Would you mind telling our listeners a little bit more about that series and some of the ideas that you came up with regarding that?
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker D:I think there is, in fandoms there's a long tradition of these kinds of you have to pick this or you have to pick that kind of thing.
Speaker D:And I think it comes from a zero sum mindset that's very easy to adopt when you're perhaps younger.
Speaker D:We associate a lot of these fandoms perhaps with young people.
Speaker D:As we talked about before, people a certain age read X Men at a certain time in their life and not at other times.
Speaker D:Or perhaps you've got your Star Treks versus your Star wars and, you know, Jackie Chan versus Bruce Lee.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:A lot of these things, I feel like, come up among young people who are still trying to kind of figure out their place in the world, at least in the sense of feeling like you have to pick one or the other and you have to feel very strongly about your choice.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:We can, we can all have conversations about the Relative merits of different things.
Speaker D:And people approach that a lot of different ways.
Speaker D:And, you know, nuance and relative values and priorities, you know, those are all perfectly good things to talk about.
Speaker D:But I do think there is a certain kind of mindset that's perhaps an immature mindset, perhaps just haven't had a lot of opportunities to deal with complexity or nuance mindset.
Speaker D:But that feels like people have to make a choice between one thing or the other and then feel very strongly about that and so very strongly against the other.
Speaker D:And so I was just kind of reflecting on some of those things that I've come across.
Speaker D:Magic and science being a big one that covers a lot of different categories.
Speaker D:And to the point they'll even see characters within the stories sniping at each other about, well, I'm a scientist and so therefore all your magic nonsense is nonsense, or I am a wizard and I think your technology is awful and ruining the natural order of things and so forth.
Speaker D:So that one's a fairly common one both inside and outside of stories.
Speaker D:You know, as I talked about on the podcast, Jackie Chan vs Bruce Lee was something that I was confronted with in junior high.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:That I had to in high school.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:That there were some kids that were into one and some kids that were in the other and you had to choose and you couldn't fathom liking one or the other.
Speaker D:The same kind of thing with Star Trek and Star wars, you know, and.
Speaker D:Yeah, so just trying to kind of think about what I had encountered.
Speaker D:But yeah, I actually don't find myself being pretty particularly strident on any of those topics.
Speaker D:Perhaps the magic in science one is a little trickier because I have no problem with stories that use magic in interesting ways.
Speaker D:It gets a little bit trickier when you talk about, well, what do we really mean by magic in the real world and so forth.
Speaker D:I don't quite know what people mean by that all the time, but generally speaking, I think that it's more interesting to see the merits of various things and to find ways to.
Speaker D:For them to complement each other rather than taking this kind of zero sum approach of anything that's good for me is bad for you and vice versa.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think it's.
Speaker C:I think it's just more fun when you're younger to like attach yourself to one side of a mostly pointless argument.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Then you just have a hot dog.
Speaker B:Yeah, that'd be a perfect polarizing question.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But all the things that Andy said is also the series, the flagship series for that theme over on systematic Ecology, we actually named Finding the Good.
Speaker B:So what we're doing in this episode largely is picking a side and then talking about the merits of the other side, rather than just bolstering our own perspective kind of deal.
Speaker B:That's kind of the goal.
Speaker B:I think it's a good exercise, even if you're not into the nerdy stuff, because it helps you kind of understand better other points of views and care about what other people have to say.
Speaker B:Which is good for church unity, perhaps, too.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think I do.
Speaker C:I think magic and science is a particularly.
Speaker C:One, like, particularly interesting one.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because it seems to get brought up in media a lot recently.
Speaker C:And like, you got Reed Richards, and he just blatantly doesn't believe in magic.
Speaker C:He's one of the smartest people, friends with the Wizards.
Speaker D:Yeah, right.
Speaker D:Has met actual vampires and was.
Speaker D:Was questioning whether vampires exist in the.
Speaker D:The blood Untapped event.
Speaker D:It's like a.
Speaker D:I feel like we've taken this one step too far.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's so funny.
Speaker C:But that's not what we're here for.
Speaker C:We're here for the job fair.
Speaker C:So, Andy, what are some things that are normal in your occupation now that others might not often think about?
Speaker C:For example, you know, we.
Speaker C:Josh and I both work in a restaurant.
Speaker C:We've got front of the house versus the back of the house, opening shift versus night shift.
Speaker C:You know, we've got these rifts that people might not often think about.
Speaker C:You know, when customers come in at night and say, why don't you have this?
Speaker C:A lot of the times the answer they'll get is because they didn't do it in the morning.
Speaker C:But is there anything like that for you that we might not think about?
Speaker D:That's a good question.
Speaker D:Again, I suspect that people have learned way more about public health in the past five years than they ever wanted to know.
Speaker D:And so it's maybe a little bit harder to think of what people don't know or aren't familiar with.
Speaker D:You know, I think people might be surprised to see and to know how much public health is a very.
Speaker D:The word that they like to use in the public health community is siloed activity.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So people are in their different.
Speaker D:Their different silos, and they don't really get out of those silos.
Speaker D:So if, you know, a silo might cover a particular area of public health, like chronic disease or a specific chronic disease or a specific collection of chronic diseases, infectious diseases, sexually transmitted infections, environmental health, occupational health, workplace exposures, the actual ways that things break down might vary a Little bit from health department to health department, but there are some pretty traditional ones.
Speaker D:And so you might have folks that work at your state health department who would physically sit next to each other, Their cubicles are connected to, are attached to each other, and they might never really have occasion to interact professionally because they're working in different domains, right?
Speaker D:One might be a chronic disease person, another might be an infectious disease person.
Speaker D:They might interact socially.
Speaker D:It's not that they're not nice to each other, polite to each other, but they just have no reason to interact professionally.
Speaker D:Whereas they might work very closely with the person in the next state over who is in their same state silo who does the same works on the same disease that they do.
Speaker D:And so they know exactly what that other person is doing, even though they're several hundred miles away, but they don't really know what's going on in the cubicle next to them.
Speaker D:The one that I was most surprised by, I mean, I had some notion of that going into this because I had public health training, and I have some notion of it from working here.
Speaker D:But the one that I came across about 10 years ago that I was really surprised by was there are folks in public health who work on drug overdoses.
Speaker D:But drug overdoses actually split into two very different silos that don't interact very often.
Speaker D:One are.
Speaker D:And the dividing line is intentional versus unintentional.
Speaker D:So there are folks who are concerned about intentional overdoses that are essentially suicide attempts.
Speaker D:And so that falls under kind of mental health or behavioral health or something like that.
Speaker D:And the unintentional ones are considered, like, a public safety issue.
Speaker D:And so they fall under an entirely different category, at least in some departments of public health.
Speaker D:So that was a challenge for us when we started working on drug overdoses with our data, was trying to figure out.
Speaker D:Well, when people come in, they're not exactly forthcoming about whether they intended to overdose or not.
Speaker D:In fact, they may not even be conscious and forthcoming at all about their situation.
Speaker D:So how do we differentiate between those two things?
Speaker D:But that was an important priority to those folks because while I work on this particular kind of drug overdose, and it, you know, and it's not by substance, it's by what the person's intent was.
Speaker B:Yeah, man, crazy stuff.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:We also want to ask just like, about the language you.
Speaker B:So, like, whenever we're trying to get to understand different.
Speaker B:Because there's like, all these different worlds, even within our own communities, because people live different lives at work than at home sometimes.
Speaker B:And we want to ask like, is there any different language that's unique to your profession?
Speaker B:So like when I, when I worked for Shutterfly, you know, is image comp validation.
Speaker B:You know, we kind of said this stuff all the time.
Speaker B:Whereas like in real world we hear about image composition.
Speaker B:Like what?
Speaker B:Or you say validation, it's like, yep, the image is there.
Speaker B:What do you, what do you mean?
Speaker B:And even, you know, I won't get into it, but there was even some, some racial stuff because like you, you knew when certain colored people were up.
Speaker B:Photo editing technology isn't as geared towards some people groups than other people groups.
Speaker B:So yeah, you had a lot of language that you're trying to like communicate this stuff.
Speaker B:Is there anything unique in the language for your job that maybe isn't normal language for everybody else?
Speaker D:Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker D:The first things that are coming to mind are more, because we're a software company and so there some of the jargon from the software engineering world.
Speaker D:So things like Sprints, there are different ways, different philosophies and different ways to organize how developers do their work.
Speaker D:And one method is called the Agile method.
Speaker D:And so development efforts are organized into Sprints and nobody's actually running.
Speaker D:They're sitting at their desk typing.
Speaker D:Just as you might imagine software developers do.
Speaker D:But they are sprinting towards a deadline.
Speaker D:Essentially.
Speaker D:They're trying to work in short, fast bursts of writing code.
Speaker D:Rather than we're going to spend six months on this project or you know, it's more like, let's spend six days or a couple weeks.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker D:What else?
Speaker D:Trying to think if there's any kind of public health.
Speaker D:I mean, like, you know, we talked about silos, right?
Speaker D:So those, you know, it's a metaphor from farming.
Speaker D:It's not the physical object, but I think the, the concept translates pretty clearly.
Speaker D:I mean there's certainly all kinds of disease terminology, right?
Speaker D:The med, you know, the medical terminology, you know, there's all kinds of lingo there, technical terms, so forth.
Speaker D:I'm always fascinated by.
Speaker D:We have in the English language there's a lot of medical terms that have both a Latin derived version and a Greek derived version.
Speaker D:And it's interesting to see which communities use which one versus the other.
Speaker D:So things like adrenaline versus epinephrine, that's Latin versus Greek for, you know, above your kidney.
Speaker D:Oh, and the other one, since we're talking about drug overdoses, an interesting language challenge that comes up is that, you know, so we're getting this text data that people are typing very quickly, so they often use abbreviations.
Speaker D:And shorthand to try to just get down what the patient said as quickly as possible so they can get on to actually treating for them, treating them.
Speaker D:And so oftentimes, if somebody overdoses, they'll just type OD for overdose.
Speaker D:However, there are some doctors and clinicians that like to use OD as an abbreviation for right eye for.
Speaker D:Again from the Latin.
Speaker D:And so, yeah, it's an interesting challenge to try to figure out from context.
Speaker D:Is this person talking about a drug overdose or talking about someone with a problem in their right eye?
Speaker C:Yeah, I never would have thought about that.
Speaker C:That's exactly what that question was for.
Speaker B:Weird, though.
Speaker B:Yeah, I also would have never thought of that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Cool.
Speaker C:So for the meat of these episodes or job fair, we want to walk through 12 big theological topics that often get debated by theologians or podcasters or pastors, and to see how these ideas actually impact people's everyday lives, career wise, specifically.
Speaker C:So we're going to go through 12 topics that our Facebook group voted on as the biggest theological hot topics of our time.
Speaker C:And like, it's multiple choice.
Speaker C:We just need you to tell us if you find the topic somewhat relevant, not relevant, really relevant, or if you've never heard of it.
Speaker C:So pretty easy.
Speaker C:You've got four options for each of our 12 topics, and then later we'll go back and highlight a couple to talk more in depth about.
Speaker C:Does that sound like something you're good for, Andy?
Speaker D:I will give it a try.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:That's all we can do, right?
Speaker C:You can do our best.
Speaker C:So the first one is gonna be.
Speaker D:Ceteriology, and the question is if that is relevant to my job or not.
Speaker C:Mm.
Speaker C:If it's relevant, somewhat relevant, not relevant, or if you've never heard of it.
Speaker B:Just say one of those four.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:I know, I've heard of it, but I'm not totally confident I'm gonna say not relevant.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Free will versus predestination.
Speaker D:Yeah, not really relevant.
Speaker C:Atonement models.
Speaker D:Yeah, not.
Speaker D:Not really relevant.
Speaker C:Continuationism versus cessationism in regards to gifts of the Spirit specifically.
Speaker D:Yeah, I mean, I suppose it's a little relevant.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Christology.
Speaker D:I mean.
Speaker D:Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker D:I'm not seeing where that's relevant.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:And God's nature.
Speaker D:Yeah, I'm not.
Speaker D:I'm not too.
Speaker D:I feel like.
Speaker D:Like I'm doing very bad at this.
Speaker D:I mean, you know, I'm not saying these are not relevant topics, but, like, in terms of how I actually do my job day to day.
Speaker B:Well, it doesn't Be about your job.
Speaker B:Just you while you're doing your job, you know, for you.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Whatever you say is the right answer because it's your opinion.
Speaker D:Fair enough.
Speaker C:Social justice.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:So that one comes up a lot.
Speaker D:So I would say that's very relevant.
Speaker C:The doctrine of imago dei.
Speaker D:You know, I would say that that's relevant to how I think about my job and how I think about the people that we are helping, hopefully through the da.
Speaker C:The nature of scripture.
Speaker D:That one I don't think is relevant.
Speaker C:Ecclesiology and missiology.
Speaker D:Yeah, I don't think that's relevant.
Speaker C:Demonology and angelology, again, maybe a little relevant.
Speaker D:And, you know, depending on how one thinks that causally intersects with people's health.
Speaker C:And eschatology, the study of the end times.
Speaker D:I'm hoping that that is not relevant to my job.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Especially on your side of things.
Speaker C:It's like, yeah, I hope that's not what.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:But if it would be very relevant.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's good.
Speaker C:You're going to have to add a whole new silo.
Speaker D:Yes.
Speaker C:With demon fatalities.
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:So with that, if you, Andy, if you had to pick two of those above 12 topics that we mentioned that you think are relevant to your day to day life just to talk a little bit more about, they don't have to be the two most relevant, just two that you would want to talk about that you think are relevant.
Speaker B:What would they be?
Speaker D:I mean, you know, I think the imago DEI and the social justice ones kind of stood out.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You want to just riff about that for a little bit?
Speaker B:What stands out to you about those that impacts your life?
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker D:You know, I mean, in terms of social justice.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:We again talked a lot in the last few years about how the categories that we create for people, race, gender, even various, you know, social and community affiliations, you know, have an impact on people's health, you know, and they.
Speaker D:Beyond whatever biological correlation there happens to be.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So we've known for a while, for example, that, you know, there are certain health outcomes that are worse for black people in the United States than they are for other groups.
Speaker D:And that is not, you know, and the evidence does not suggest that that's because there is some genetic feature of that population that means that they have worse outcomes.
Speaker D:You know, things like blood pressure and diabetes and so forth.
Speaker D:There are obviously one example that people might go to is sickle cell anemia.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So the genes for sickle cell are more prevalent in certain populations.
Speaker D:And that does have to do with the intersection of sickle cell anemia and malaria protection.
Speaker D:And so people coming from places where malaria is endemic.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:That is there.
Speaker D:There is some biological, genetic connection.
Speaker D:But a lot of these other health outcomes, we have not been able to find any biological explanation or genetic explanation.
Speaker D:It has to do more with access to healthcare, education, communities, approaches to treating different things.
Speaker D:It even comes down to knowing your health outcome may depend on did you grow up in a community that knows when to go to a doctor?
Speaker D:For what, and what doctor do you go to?
Speaker D:I'm always a little bit surprised by how much you have to know as the patient about which.
Speaker D:Which doctor to see for what kind of condition.
Speaker D:You always have to halfway diagnose yourself before you figure out which healthcare professional to see.
Speaker D:And so if that knowledge is not part of your community, part of your education and your upbringing, you might delay care.
Speaker D:You might not get care at all.
Speaker D:You might not know this is something that needs to be treated or something that could be treated.
Speaker D:A lot of people suffer with things because they don't think there's anything that could be done with them.
Speaker D:And so, yeah, so that intersects.
Speaker D:And we've made some efforts in the past using our data to try to identify.
Speaker D:We don't get a lot of data about specific people.
Speaker D:We're not getting your full name and address and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker D:We're trying to look at things at an aggregate level.
Speaker D:So there's limitations to what we can do.
Speaker D:But we have made some efforts to try to identify issues that might correspond to socioeconomic categories or just geographic regions.
Speaker D:I've seen public health folks who have access to more granular data.
Speaker D:You know, they've been able to identify specific housing developments where there are specific healthcare problems or healthcare issues because of access to healthcare and different issues.
Speaker D:So that definitely intersects with what we do a lot.
Speaker D:And we talk a lot about how do we provide the best care for everyone and to make sure that public health is definitely concerned with things like education, access to resources.
Speaker D:We're not necessarily treating each individual people.
Speaker D:That's more on the medical side.
Speaker D:But, you know, if there's an issue with a particular neighborhood is too far away from the nearest pharmacy, the nearest grocery store with fresh produce, the nearest emergency department.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:That's a public health issue in terms of how do we identify those communities and those needs.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I just want to lean a little into that.
Speaker B:Do you think there are any ways that the church can actually help be part of the solution here?
Speaker B:Because, like, what you're Mentioning is it's not something that maybe science can solve on its own.
Speaker B:Because what we're seeing is a lot of these issues aren't just genetic.
Speaker B:It's people's access.
Speaker B:Is there a way the church can step in there?
Speaker D:Yeah, you know, there are certainly things that churches can do.
Speaker D:I think part of, you know, the first step in some church communities may just be grappling with and recognizing that systemic issues exist and that not all problems are caused by individual choices, that there are things that operate at a system level, at a community level, at a neighborhood level, at a county level, or what have you that have to be addressed at that level in order to be able to make a contribution to the solution.
Speaker D:Churches can be a source of better education on these issues.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:You can have folks in your church who maybe provide their expertise on.
Speaker D:On healthcare issues.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:How do I.
Speaker D:Who do I see for this?
Speaker D:Is there a doctor that can help me with this problem?
Speaker D:When do I call?
Speaker D:When do I go to the er?
Speaker D:When do I go to my primary care physician?
Speaker D:Some people just need help with those kinds of questions.
Speaker D:There may be issues depending on where your church is located.
Speaker D:There might be issues of transportation, so the church could maybe.
Speaker D:I know there are churches that provide transportation to various things that could include taking folks to healthcare appointments or even.
Speaker D:And this obviously gets into confidentiality issues and so forth.
Speaker D:But sometimes folks might even need somebody to go in and talk to their doctor with them about what is going on.
Speaker D:Maybe there's language barriers or maybe there's just unfamiliarity with things.
Speaker D:And obviously, again, that has to be navigated very carefully with each individual with respect to their pregnancies, privacy and so forth.
Speaker D:But that might be a place where folks could help.
Speaker D:Some churches operate food pantries, just kind of paying attention to what food are we stocking?
Speaker D:What kind of nutrition is available through this food?
Speaker D:Is it all just calories?
Speaker D:Are there plenty of micronutrients?
Speaker D:Is there plenty of protein, plenty of fiber?
Speaker D:All those kinds of things.
Speaker D:And so maybe even rethinking about asking what you ask for donations for the food pantry might be something that the church could do.
Speaker D:And if you don't have one, maybe, you know, starting one or starting something like that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker D:Helping to deal with issues of food insecurity, food access.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:I mean, you know, there's probably a whole long list of things that could be done, but those are just some of the ones that kind of popped onto my head.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm asking one other thing, and then TJ will be annoyed at Me, but it's okay.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I don't think he hates me yet.
Speaker B:One of the things you said somewhat, too, is what I'm actually curious of the angelology, demonology, and how people think that might impact their health.
Speaker B:Growing up Pentecostal, I know a lot of people who blame diseases and stuff or mental illnesses on demons.
Speaker B:Is that kind of what you were getting at or is there something else?
Speaker B:I'm just curious.
Speaker D:Yeah, I think that's part of it.
Speaker D:Some people absolutely have that mindset that some element of mental illness and some, sometimes even physical illnesses are spiritual in nature.
Speaker D:But there's also, you know, the element of, you know, on the flip side.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Do I think that, you know, angels can be a source of healing or a source of relief from these things?
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So I think that there's a kind of practical public health issue of being aware of people's beliefs in those kinds of areas and helping navigate them.
Speaker D:And whether you, as a healthcare provider or a public health professional, share those same beliefs or not, you might have to still navigate how a person approaches those kinds of questions and be respectful of where they're coming from and provide solutions in a way that is consistent or complementary to how they approach things.
Speaker D:And that may be another role for, you know, for the church.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:For the church leaders to be able to help navigate those.
Speaker D:Those intersections.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And help maybe some of the congregation being a positive force for.
Speaker D:Hey, you know, there's a way that this medicine or that, you know, this health care procedure or mental health, you know, treatment can sit alongside of your belief in, you know, God's healing rather than being at odds with it.
Speaker D:So, yeah, that was.
Speaker D:That was kind of what I had in mind.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean, I get it.
Speaker C:And they're right.
Speaker C:Demons do cause all bad things.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker C:Yep, that's what that is.
Speaker C:So is there any one of the topics that we mentioned that you think is particularly irrelevant to your life?
Speaker C:Like, specifically, I mean, to my life.
Speaker D:It's a whole lot, you know, not necessarily, but, you know, thinking about, like, how I conduct my.
Speaker D:My job day to day.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:I, you know, I'm not, like I said, you know, a particular model of the end times, a particular model of atonement.
Speaker D:Maybe I'm just not a good enough theologian, but I'm not really sure how I would do my job differently under different circumstances.
Speaker D:I guess there's a certain nihilism that comes with a certain very extreme view of eschatology that I might just not do my job if I didn't think that there was any way that I could positively impact the world or something like that, but that's a fairly extreme view that I'm not sure anybody seriously holds to.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Do you think, or what would you rather our church and like our pastors, theologians, focus on just, you know, more to cater towards people like you?
Speaker D:Yeah, I mean, so, you know, as a person like me, I see, you know, value in theology of all kinds.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:And as somebody who is enthusiastic for basic science and curiosity driven science for the, for its own sake, I certainly wouldn't want to discourage anybody from curiosity driven theology for its own sake.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So even if the question of, you know, what, what actually happened on the cross, what was the model of atonement or the question of what's coming in the future for all of us, even if that might not change what I'm practically doing from moment to moment, doesn't necessarily mean that it's a, it's not a worthwhile investigation.
Speaker D:Doesn't mean it's not interesting academically, intellectually and so forth.
Speaker D:So I, you know, I don't want to, I wouldn't want to dictate, you know, anybody's particular theological preferences or directions and so forth.
Speaker D:I think those are all valid topics to explore and, you know, learning more about God, knowing more about God and who God is and what God is like, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't discourage any of that, you know, I think.
Speaker D:But, you know, thinking about myself as a public health person, as a scientist and what might cater to me specifically, you know, I think that what I would like to see is when there are intersections with science, you know, being willing to engage with people who have technical expertise and technical knowledge.
Speaker D:I have, I have sat in sermons and heard people preach on biology and heard people preach incorrectly on biology and tried to explain afterwards, you know, if you wouldn't go up in front of the church and say, look, I know we have these fantastic musicians in our church and they can sing and they can play the piano well and all these different things, and that's great, I'm glad that they're here, but we're gonna do worship now and I'm going to sit down at the piano and play and sing and that will be fine.
Speaker D:And then, you know, know go through and, you know, provide an off key, you know, rendition.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:That wouldn't, we would never do that.
Speaker D:That would be, we would know that that would be so insulting to the talented musicians who have put years and years of practice into being musicians.
Speaker D:But When I try to explain that, I just kind of got like, you know, dead looks like.
Speaker D:But of course, it's not the same thing because I didn't sing.
Speaker D:I talked about science.
Speaker D:And that's, you know, everybody's allowed to have their.
Speaker D:Their thoughts and their opinions about these topics.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker D:But, yeah, I mean, that's.
Speaker D:That's how I've felt in the past, for what.
Speaker D:For whatever that's worth.
Speaker D:And I would like to see fewer people feel like that in the future, if that's at all possible.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:No, I actually.
Speaker B:I really love that.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:And we've had Frank Viola on our podcast a few other times, so check him out if you guys will.
Speaker B:He's a little bit more conservative, but he helps write a book called Pagan Christianity where they kind of show how the church somehow became this place where, like, it revolves around one person doing a speech and it's like a show, and that's not what the church started off as.
Speaker B:So I like this idea of more people participating in different ways, whether it be our scientists to talk about scientific issues rather than someone who maybe doesn't have expertise in that field.
Speaker B:Or, you know, like you mentioned pastors preaching about biology, not knowing anything about it.
Speaker B:Your pastor's preaching the Bible.
Speaker B:And I'm like, I kind of wish you would stop at exalt a Bible expert first, because even the stuff that's, like, maybe seems inconsequential that you get wrong.
Speaker B:I'm like, no, that's just incorrect.
Speaker B:That's not actually what it says.
Speaker B:Or, you know, I'm like, I don't think you read this other passage that says Saul's name, who was also Paul.
Speaker B:That's the thing, they get wrong a lot, right?
Speaker B:Where people, like, when Saul's name changed, like, it didn't stop preaching.
Speaker B:That Bible doesn't say that.
Speaker B:And it's just stuff like that.
Speaker B:Or even, you know, when preachers preach about, like, the Buddha and how he's their God.
Speaker B:And I'm like, he's not, though.
Speaker B:You know, like, we expect our TV shows to go to scientific experts, religious experts for philosophy, people on hand so that they get stuff right.
Speaker B:But for some reason, when a preacher gets up to tell a congregation what is truth, the same expectation isn't put on them, that's on our entertainment of simply just getting stuff right, you know, I don't know.
Speaker B:That was just a little bit of a side tangent, I guess.
Speaker B:Anyway, each of us see the world through different eyes, right?
Speaker B:Like something we talked a lot about on this series is, you know, you as a scientist and how you live your daily life, you see the world differently than someone like me who works in food.
Speaker B:How we see the world going through our life.
Speaker B:Is there anything in your work that you think that you see that our pastors, church leaders, theologians, might benefit from seeing for themselves or learning more about that maybe they don't see in their regular daily lives?
Speaker D:Yeah, I had occasion to talk with Will a little bit about this, and it was kind of actually even exploring a little bit as we were talking and hadn't quite articulated it in this way before, but one of the things that I have to do for my job periodically is, you know, we get this text data of why do people go to the hospital?
Speaker D:And we have to identify new categories in that data and find new things that we hadn't been looking for before.
Speaker D:You know, for example, drug overdoses.
Speaker D:We didn't used to work with those, but, you know, became a bigger and bigger concern.
Speaker D:And our data was able to provide up to date information at a time when that was harder to get.
Speaker D:And so, you know, it was a new thing that we had to take on.
Speaker D:So periodically I have to go through this text data and I'll look through tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of these short little descriptions of why people went to the hospital.
Speaker D:And by and large, what I'm getting is a very, very concentrated dose of everybody's top five, 10 worst days of their lives, right?
Speaker D:There are some people, obviously, that go to the ED more often that are experiencing chronic illnesses.
Speaker D:And there are some trips to the ED that are not that big of a deal.
Speaker D:You had a small injury or a little bit of a fever and you'll be fine.
Speaker D:But by and large, if you're in the emergency department, that's one of the worst days of your life.
Speaker D:You've been in some kind of bad car accident, you're having some kind of health crisis.
Speaker D:Even if it's just kind of that emotional, like something is going on with my body that I don't get.
Speaker D:That's a tough day.
Speaker D:And so getting that concentrated dose of tens of thousands, hundreds, thousands of people's worst moments, that's a tough thing to deal with kind of emotionally, mentally.
Speaker D:And so, you know, but it's.
Speaker D:And thinking through that and thinking about that, it's given me opportunity to reflect on, you know, the experience that God must have of having a much more, you know, than just a little text blurb awareness of what people, you know, both the joys and the happiness and the, you know, top 10 days, positive days of people's lives and the, you know, the top 10 worst days of people's lives that we're all going through all the time.
Speaker D:There's always, you know, I don't know how many millions of people experiencing their worst day of their life at any given time right around the world.
Speaker D:And you know, how God experienced that exactly?
Speaker D:Like I said, I don't really know for sure.
Speaker D:But, you know, scripture testifies that to some extent, you know, in some fashion, God is aware of our suffering and our joys and, you know, is sensitive to those things.
Speaker D:And so what, you know, what must that be like?
Speaker D:And again, not trying to say that I'm experiencing something the same way that God has, but it's a different kind of human experience that maybe helps us to think a little bit differently about what God's perspective might be like.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Also for those wondering, he mentioned Will, that Pastor Will Rose.
Speaker B:He's my pastor.
Speaker B:We also mention him every episode now, apparently.
Speaker B:And they will.
Speaker B:And Andy did an episode, a YouTube exclusive for systematic Ecology, talking about Andy's book.
Speaker B:So I think that's kind of where they got into some of that if you guys want to check it out.
Speaker B:Hopefully I remember to put that link in the show notes, but I'm bad at that, so don't count on it.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:So are there any questions that we might have missed that you think people might want to know about you or your work as a public health official?
Speaker D:You know, I think, I think we've touched on the basics of what I do.
Speaker D:You know, it is a very unusual kind of job, as I've kind of hinted at.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:It's at this intersection of software and software engineering and statistical analysis and data engineering and data science and also public health and biology and, you know, so it.
Speaker B:You guys are basically hitting multiple jobs at once.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Just so you know, when I, when I applied for this, for this job, they told me, well, we didn't really have an opening for somebody like you because we didn't know that somebody like you existed.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:But, yeah, so, you know, it's always.
Speaker D:There's always something new going on.
Speaker D:There's always something interesting to work on.
Speaker D:But yeah, hopefully folks have a little better awareness that this is.
Speaker D:There's a whole community of people who are sitting out there at a second kind of level removed from your doctors.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:Obviously you've got doctors and nurses and other clinicians who care about your specific personality, health and well being.
Speaker D:But then there's this whole Other level of people that are trying to think about how do we.
Speaker D:How do we make things better for whole groups and communities and neighborhoods and states and counties and, you know, hopefully that that's a positive thing to think about, that, you know, that these folks, you know, they may not always achieve it in the.
Speaker D:To the best that they.
Speaker D:They want to or the.
Speaker D:To the degree that they want to, but they are trying to figure out how to make things better for all of us, how to improve our health, how to improve our environments and our communities so that we can all flourish a little bit more.
Speaker D:And.
Speaker D:Yeah, you know, and it really kind of grieved me a bit when, you know, to see these folks get demonized so much and, you know, the idea that, like, oh, they don't want us going out and hanging out in restaurants or getting together.
Speaker D:I'm like, if only you knew you could talk to some of these people, like, they would be the first person to go to you with a bar, have a drink with you, chat with you.
Speaker D:They would love nothing more than to see you get to socialize and be happy and would gladly do it with you if you were so inclined.
Speaker D:But, yeah, I think there are a few people that I've met more who are more just kind of thinking about how do we make things better for everybody all the time.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I do have one question.
Speaker C:As the chief science officer, do you get, like, a big fancy desk?
Speaker B:You got a name for gimbal?
Speaker D:So I got the job title that I have.
Speaker D:My boss said it was about 60, 40 between it was appropriate promotion in the sort of corporate advancement sense and wanting to give me a job title that was the same as Mr.
Speaker D:Spocks on Star Trek.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So fantastic.
Speaker D:We are a small software company and, well, we don't have to go there, but, yeah, we are a small software company.
Speaker D:We've been about the same size the whole time that I've been there.
Speaker D:So, you know, I'm not in some fake fancy corner office.
Speaker D:I don't even have a door on my office.
Speaker D:This private suite kind of thing.
Speaker D:I do have, you know, a nice.
Speaker B:Yet you don't have it yet.
Speaker D:Yet.
Speaker D:My desk is bigger than.
Speaker D:My desk in my office at work is bigger than other desks that I've had before.
Speaker D:So I guess I would say there's a big desk, but it's not like, you know, it's certainly nothing, you know, one of these, like, solid wood kind of.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker D:You know, those aren't real.
Speaker C:No one has that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm literally recording on that desk right now, a solid wood, big desk.
Speaker C:Yeah, but it's not that solid.
Speaker C:It's broken.
Speaker B:I mean, that's true, but that's because I moved it several times and I broke it.
Speaker B:I'm just that powerful.
Speaker B:That's different.
Speaker B:Anyway, the, you know, one thing we usually do on this show before wrapping up is to ask our guests if they could provide a single tangible action for those listening that they could go to help church unity, you know, whatever.
Speaker B:But instead, for this series, we've been asking people, people, if someone in the church or the church itself could do something to help you specifically or like someone like you or in your career that works with public health, what's something the church could do that would be beneficial to people like you, Andy, or someone in the church?
Speaker D:Yeah, you know, I think that, you know, something that public health folks could always use is just a little more encouragement and appreciation or gratefulness.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So when you're, when you're a physician and you help somebody get better, right.
Speaker D:You see that you have some direct connection to, oh, look, that person is now healthy because I, you know, gave them this medicine or performed the surgery, what have you.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:The best that I can do working in public health, and especially since I'm kind of like even one step removed from frontline public health is, well, hopefully like 100,000 people are like 1 point or zero 0.1% better off today than they were last year or whatever.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D: t all those, you know, little.: Speaker D:But it's very abstract, it's very indirect and diffuse.
Speaker D:And so, yeah, just kind of saying to somebody, hey, I know that I don't know what exactly you've done done to help me personally, but I know that you're working hard to help people and I appreciate that and thank you for that.
Speaker D:You know, if you know somebody who works in or around public health and obviously also, you know, healthcare, frontline healthcare workers and all those folks, you know, deserve all the thanks and appreciation that we can give them too.
Speaker D:But yeah, if you know somebody in public health just, you know, every once in a while that, that little, hey, I'm glad that you do what you do, and obviously everybody would, would benefit from that.
Speaker D:But just kind of, I think public health, because of that abstraction, because of that removal from any kind of tangible, direct results, it's always, it's always needed.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, we do appreciate you and what you do, for the record.
Speaker D:Well, thank you.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker C:And what do you think we would see change in the world around us if everyone started doing that?
Speaker C:You know, just being thankful to our local or not local public health officials?
Speaker D:Well, I mean, I think we would maybe develop a greater collective appreciation and understanding for what public health is and does and has been doing and why it's been one of the best investments we've made over the past century and why it would be worth continuing to invest in and continuing to have people pursue.
Speaker D:You know, I think we're kind of at a low point at the moment of why would anybody want to get into this job that, you know, when folks aren't even gonna listen to what you have to say or what have you?
Speaker D:So, yeah, I think if, you know, if we could foster a little bit more appreciation, awareness of just what it is that public health does and why they do it, then, you know, maybe we'd have a.
Speaker D:We'd be in good shape for the next generation of public health workers.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:All right, so before we start to wrap up here, we like to do what we call the God moment, and we ask everyone to share a moment they saw God in recently, whether that be a blessing, a challenge, a moment of worship, what have you, what it may be.
Speaker C:I always make Josh go first to give the rest of us enough time to think about a good moment where we saw God recently.
Speaker C:So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us this week?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:It's going to be weird and maybe a little awkward.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:My God moment this week is just like approximately an hour and 10 minutes ago.
Speaker B:I was thinking about how thankful I am for this guy named tj, Tiberius Vaughn Blackwell.
Speaker B:He just does a lot for different podcasts that I'm involved with.
Speaker B:You know, I produce, I edit, I do all this stuff, and sometimes TJ is just like, he's the ground man, right?
Speaker B:Like, he's, hey, we need somebody to jump in here.
Speaker B:And he's like, yeah, I could do that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know enough to talk about that.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker B:And TJ says sure to so many wild, crazy ideas I have or just things that I need help with, and he makes my life a lot easier.
Speaker B:And just think about how thankful I am for him and how I just don't say that enough, probably.
Speaker B:So being on this podcast and getting the opportunity to thank TJ is.
Speaker B:That's going to be my God moment.
Speaker B:So thank you, dj.
Speaker C:Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So for me, my God moment, it's.
Speaker C:It's a.
Speaker C:It's a.
Speaker C:It's a weird one, it's a different one.
Speaker C:I've been so caught up in, like the cultural zeitgeist of, you know, just everything that's going on really, and how much attention has been diverted away from environmental health recently because of the pandemic and seeing it come back into the spotlight.
Speaker C:Especially for us here in South Carolina, where we've got, you know, wildfires for the first time, like ever.
Speaker C:Not actually ever, but definitely for the first time since I've been alive, it's been pretty eye opening to see people around me start to grapple with the idea of environmental health.
Speaker C:And especially because I just the other day I found out, and this is.
Speaker C:Well, I've always been such a big advocate for making your kids go play outside, but now it's just not all that safe.
Speaker C:My roommate was going for a walk out behind our apartment complex.
Speaker C:Just walking out down there because he likes to look around and see old stuff.
Speaker C:Old, you know, rotted out buildings and stuff.
Speaker C:And he found a chemical spill in our creek.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah?
Speaker B:Wait, what kind?
Speaker C:Not sure yet.
Speaker C:But now that's under investigation, so.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah, that is not what I.
Speaker B:Where I expected this to go, by the way.
Speaker C:It's not, is it?
Speaker B:Yeah, that's wild.
Speaker C:But, you know, these other problems still exist.
Speaker C:You know, it's nice to be out there, you know, community.
Speaker C:Our country would fall apart if we weren't.
Speaker C:Everyone wasn't trying to look out for each other at least a little bit.
Speaker C:And I think that's kind of what's happening.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:Well, you know, do your part.
Speaker B:Is that a blessing or a challenge?
Speaker B:Like a blessing.
Speaker B:We remember that.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's other problems other than just Donald Trump.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:He's the president.
Speaker B:The only problem in the world.
Speaker C:There's chemicals in my creek.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But that's getting dealt with.
Speaker C:So, Andy, do you have a God moment for us this week?
Speaker D:So we're making plans.
Speaker D:My wife and my daughter and I are making plans to visit my parents for Easter weekend coming up.
Speaker D:And kind of out of the blue, my daughter was asking me, hey, does grandma still run the Sunday school at her church?
Speaker D:I was like, yeah, I think so.
Speaker D:Or, you know, she's still involved, like.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker D:And you asked this because she's like, oh, yeah, because I wanted to, you know, see if she needed my help with Sunday school when we go see her.
Speaker D:And, you know, in light of just, you know, without getting into all the details.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:But my family and my daughters had, you know, some complicated relationships with church activities in recent years.
Speaker D:And so just hearing that, oh, you know, she was still thinking about that.
Speaker D:She was thinking about how to help my mom, how to help these kids, how to be involved at church when we go out there to this other church that she's not familiar with.
Speaker D:Especially because my parents church is meeting in a different building.
Speaker D:They had a fire like a year and a half ago.
Speaker D:I think now it is.
Speaker D:And so they've been meeting in another church's building and so that, you know, this will be our first time there in this other unfamiliar setting.
Speaker D:So that, you know, she was not like, oh, you know, I don't want to go.
Speaker D:I don't want to be involved.
Speaker D:I don't want to.
Speaker D:I just want to kind of hide.
Speaker D:But she was like, no, how can I help?
Speaker D:How can I be involved?
Speaker D:That was encouraging and positive to see.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And if you like this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend.
Speaker C:Share with an enemy, Share with your cousins.
Speaker C:Check out the store we run through Captivate.
Speaker C:It's comfy, it's nice, it's reasonably priced.
Speaker C:There's no reason not to unless you don't have any money.
Speaker C:But if you want me us to buy you the merch, you know, that still goes down as a merch sale for us.
Speaker C:So let us know, we'll see what happens.
Speaker B:Yeah, it wouldn't be the first time weirdly enough, but yeah.
Speaker B:Also check out our other shows.
Speaker B:You know, this is a crossover we're doing.
Speaker B:We're doing some cross promotion with systematic ecology with our encore episode here.
Speaker B:So check them out.
Speaker B:But you know, check out all the shows on the Unazile podcast network.
Speaker B:You can check out trying to think some ones.
Speaker B:I don't usually say the homily with Will Rose.
Speaker B:You can check out Friday Night Fright with Christian Ashley or the Bible After Hours with the foul mouth preacher.
Speaker B:All those are, are fun and I think worth worth taking your time checking them out.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And we hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker C:Next week we will be off for a week.
Speaker C:It's gonna be crazy.
Speaker C:We're gonna do probably nothing and realistically probably a lot actually.
Speaker C:But the week after that we're having a round table of pastors and professors join us to reflect on this, our job Fair series.
Speaker C:And after that we're going to be doing some episodes to hype up the Ology beer camp.
Speaker C:But this year in St.
Speaker C:Paul, Minnesota.
Speaker C:And we hope to have Reverend Shayna Watson back on soon to discuss her time pastoring an international diverse faith community at the Anglican Trinity church in Washington D.C.
Speaker C:at the end of season one, of course, will be Francis Chan.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:He doesn't know, though, so someone does have to tell him.
Speaker B:Still police.
Speaker C:Yeah, we're currently.
Speaker C:We're going for, like, the world record.
Speaker C:Longest first season.
Speaker B:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker B:But I think, yeah, it's got to be close.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I've never checked the stats.
Speaker B:I have no idea.
Speaker B:Guinness let us know.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Till next time, though.
Speaker A:On us, Lord Please put your hand on us day by day, Lord.
Speaker D:Lord.
Speaker A:Have mercy on us, Lord Please put your hand on us day by day.
