Faith at the End of Life:
Starting Out With the End in Mind
3:10 PM
In our modern worldview, we do all that we can to avoid the reality of death. We send our elderly to nursing homes and our sick to hospital wards, quarantined from the communities in which they once lived. But Stephen Covey reminds us, “Successful people start out with the end in mind.” And C.S. Lewis reminds us that we can’t get second things by putting them first; we can only get second things but putting first things first. Denial of death is one of the most pernicious ways we avoid both these hard questions. Death is a reality we all must face. What, can we learn about dying and those who are facing death that can help us reorder our thinking, reset our priorities, and live an abundant life fulfilling to ourselves and those around us? What does faith bring to that question?
Moderator
Ralph W. Aye MD, D’72
Former Chief of Surgery, Swedish Medical Center
Ralph W. Aye, M.D. is an attending thoracic and esophageal surgeon and thoracic surgery fellowship director at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. There he has served, among many other positions, as Chief of Surgery from 2002 to 2005, as a clinical assistant professor in the University of Washington, Department of Surgery from 1987 to 2009, and as the president of the Seattle Surgical Society from 2007 to 2008. Dr. Aye publishes regularly in many medical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Aye graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1972 with a modified biology major and went on to receive his M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1977. Dr. Aye did his internship and began his general surgery residency at New York University’s Bellevue Medical Center before moving to the Swedish Medical Center in 1979 where he became Chief Resident. He also completed fellowships in thoracic and esophageal surgery at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, England and as the Howard S. Wright Fellow to Lucius D. Hill, M.D. in Seattle.
Dr. Aye currently attends Pine Lake Covenant Church in Sammamish, Washington where he regularly helps lead worship and has served as the prayer coordinator. He has participated with a healing prayer ministry over the past three years. Dr. Aye has also been involved in medical missions, traveling with his wife to Kenya several times and running a primary care clinic out of a suitcase.
Panelists
Frank Young, MD PhD
Former Commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration
Robert W. Lobel MD, D’83
Urogynecology / Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery, Albany, NY
Dr. Lobel received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in computer science and his medical degree from Oral Roberts University. Following residency in Phoenix and fellowship in Chicago at Northwestern University Medical School, he moved to Albany to found the Division of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery at Albany Medical College. He then launched his private practice ten years ago. Dr. Lobel is the recipient of both local and national awards for his research endeavors and has written many articles in medical journals and textbooks.
Although he has witnessed his share of death and dying professionally, Dr. Lobel has come starkly face to face with the topic of this session on two occasions, first with the death of his second child to SIDS in 1985 and, most profoundly, with the death of his wife of almost 30 years to stomach cancer two years ago.
