skill

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Ability To Diagnose Is A Skill On It’s Own

Just like jam goes with bread, skill goes with the ability to diagnose. You don’t want one without the other.

Ability To Diagnose Is A Skill On It's Own

A mechanic who is highly skilled at fixing cars is of great value. But if he struggles to diagnose car problems, that won’t bode well for the car owner no matter the mechanic’s skill. That car will be on the hoist for a long time and, in the end, it will cost more to fix the car than it should.

Skill is important, but being able to diagnose a problem or identify what’s wrong is crucial to the outcome.

Being able to quickly see the problem is an ability that not everyone has. 

It takes more than physical skill; there is deep knowledge, intuition, experience, logic and creativity that all come into play. 

Not everyone possesses all these attributes or at least in abundance. 

A couple of weeks ago, my wife, Lily, was experiencing some stomach pain. It wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t going away and was even getting a little worse. 

A few days into it we talked about what it might be. Was it some kind of stomach bug, maybe something she ate? 

I asked her if there was any specific pain and she did say it was sore down on her lower right side. So I replied, “Could it be your appendix?” 

Lily brushed it off. She didn’t think the pain was that significant and that the pain was not isolated in any specific area. 

But a few more days later, things weren’t getting better. In fact she was more uncomfortable. So we decided to go to the hospital emergency department. 

That happened to be at about 8:40 pm … and possibly it was a full moon that night because the emerg was hopping.

There was no place for Lily to sit and, though she told the intake person what her pain was, she didn’t get triaged for almost two hours. 

At 10:30 pm she eventually was able to get into the system and join the sea of humanity in the waiting room. 

She managed to find a chair, while she watched others be taken into the patient examination rooms. 

At 3:15 am she was finally brought in for examination. However, there were no cubicles available so she was placed on a gurney beside the nursing station. 

At 5:00 am she was finally examined by a doctor who ordered a CT scan, and at 7:30 am the results came back that she had a ruptured appendix. 

… That’s a long time from entering emerg to identifying the problem. Sure, some of it was due to the volume of people there that night. But a good part of the reason it took so long for Lily to be checked out is the triage personnel’s inability to diagnose the severity of the issue.

Lily’s on a slow road to recovery now, but I wonder how much better it would have been if someone had have diagnosed her issue sooner. 

Here’s the thing: We like to diagnose when we have problems or trouble in our lives. We will say it is because of this or that. But there is one who has perfect skills and never fails to diagnose a problem correctly – God. Go to Him with your trouble and He will set you on the right path every time.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you diagnosed incorrectly in the last month? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Cheap Doesn’t Always Mean It’s Easy

I think cheap things should be easy and simple, while more expensive things harder and more complicated. 

cheap doesn't always mean it's easy

For instance, take two drones that look the same. You might think the cheap one would be easier to fly than the more expensive one. You might think the more expensive one would take more skill to fly it. 

But that’s not the way it is. 

The first drone I had was very inexpensive. I constantly had to work both control sticks to keep the drone in the air so it didn’t drop to the ground and crash.

It was hard, constant work. 

My next drone cost me more. But I could put the drone in the air, take my hands completely off the controller and it would just stay there, hovering in place. 

The more expensive drone was much easier to fly. It took less skill to use the more expensive one than the cheaper one. 

Things shouldn’t be that way.

If I’m new at something and buy an inexpensive product to learn on, it should be easier to use. I want to gradually get more proficient at it and then upgrade to something that requires more skill. 

Drones are not the only things like that. Guitars work that way, too. 

Every guitar has the same components. Someone should be able to pick up any guitar and play it. You place your fingers on the frets the same way. You strum the same way. The sound comes out of it at the same place. 

No matter what guitar I pick up, I should be able to play it. 

… Well, that’s only partly correct.

I remember when I got my first guitar. A guy I knew said he had an old one I could have, which was great since I was just learning to play. 

The first thing I did was change the strings that were probably twenty years old. I took off all the strings, put the new stings on and then started tuning it. … I didn’t know you should always keep some tension on the neck.

As I got the guitar closer to being in tune, I snapped the neck right off the back of the guitar. 

I was back to having no guitar, so I went out and purchased one. It was cheap – only $85 – but it had a nice sound to it.

I learned how to play on that guitar and had it for many years. 

There was just one problem with it. The strings seemed like they were about an inch off the neck so I had to press really hard when forming a chord. As much as I played, my fingers never seemed to get past the hurting stage. It didn’t matter how thick the calluses were on my fingertips, after twenty minutes I needed to put the guitar down. 

But a cheap guitar should be easy to play. 

Unfortunately that is not the case. … In my next post (read here) I will expose this problem more.

Here’s the thing: Because two things work on the same principles doesn’t mean they are equal. Some people believe that all religions are based on faith and, therefore, are the same. Not true. Christianity is the only religion that believes you can’t earn your way into heaven. It is the only religion that requires 100% faith in God to provide it. There’s nothing you can do. Not all religions are the same and not all faith is equal. God has provided through Jesus what we could never do – a relationship and eternity with God. Take God up on His offer; put your faith in Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How much faith do you place in your future? Leave your comments and questions below.

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