{"id":3119,"date":"2015-10-15T17:43:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T17:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/?p=3119"},"modified":"2015-10-17T05:57:25","modified_gmt":"2015-10-17T05:57:25","slug":"what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should We Take Away From Slate’s Missionary Health Article?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"12166160_606481719780_352061214_n\"<\/a>
Elder Parley P. Pratt\/Flickr Commons\/Pixabay alterations by JJ Feinauer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

We posted<\/a> recently about the Slate <\/em>piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care,<\/a> and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood <\/em><\/a>in response. Both are worth a read, but the gist is that Stern reported that missionaries are often denied medical care in the mission field, and Reiss pointed out that his piece lacked some key information and relied instead on shock journalism, which undermined its potential positive influence in Church policy or culture. She\u2019s right, but there is something worth taking away from Stern\u2019s piece anyway, especially given the much-needed attention it is attracting. After all, I was a missionary who received pretty good care when compared to the stories in Stern\u2019s piece, and yet I still found his article consistent with my experience in many ways.<\/p>\n

It is a shame that Stern didn\u2019t find the numbers Salt Lake Tribune<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>published, or that he was apparently oblivious to the article at all, but I don\u2019t necessarily fault him for relying\u00a0on anecdotal evidence. There are some stories where that approach is entirely appropriate, like a story about an individual\u2019s health. It\u2019s also very clear that Stern was writing to an audience unfamiliar with Mormonism<\/a> and how missions work, since the bulk of the article is actually explaining details about mission life in general. In that context, I think a lot of people would <\/em>be shocked to find out there is no uniform missionary health plan, and that there are cases\u2014even if they are the minority\u2014where leaders block access to hospitals and doctors. And we should consider how that looks to outsiders, who are unbiased with feelings of religious determination when it comes to missions.<\/p>\n

So I wouldn\u2019t go as far as Reiss\u2019 rebuke. The truth is likely somewhere in between. Because as much as Stern relied on personal stories about health failures on missions, most critical responses are full of the same kinds of personal stories, but with a different outcome. Allow me to add to this discussion.<\/p>\n

I served a mission in St. Louis from 2004-2005, leaving after only eleven months due to serious depression and anxiety. From my perspective, the Slate <\/em>piece felt so familiar and consistent with my experience. Like one of the stories in Stern\u2019s piece, I too regularly have dreams about packing up my life and returning to St. Louis to finish what I started, and when I did return my friends avoided me for a while, an unintentional ostracism caused by the uncertainty of an early returned missionary\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

The St. Louis mission in particular is interesting, because a few of the missionaries developed a theory on why we had been picked for that particular mission. St. Louis has fantastic medical facilities, and a surprising number of missionaries in the field had serious health issues prior to serving. My first companion, for example, once had a large tumor removed from his leg. During a district meeting, we hypothesized that the easy access to state-of-the-art medical care was a key factor in many missionaries\u2019 assignment in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Like I said, this was just a theory, and maybe those connections are merely coincidence, but I\u2019d like to think there was some practicality to mission placement besides just a spiritual prompting. Come to think of it, during my mission a senior missionary couple also faced a battle with cancer, but remained in the mission field and sought treatment in St. Louis, and they also attributed their call to the area as a sort of protection from God from illness.<\/p>\n

There was a surprising number of missionaries with mental health issues as well. I have no idea if we were above average compared to other missions\u2014I\u2019m not sure if that data is available per mission\u2014but mental health treatment was readily available, though missionaries were often too embarrassed to seek treatment, since depression can feel so similar to spiritual inferiority. LDS Family Services offered a therapist to talk to missionaries who felt depressed, and he was actually one of the most helpful therapists I\u2019ve ever met. He listened well, and since he too served a mission, was incredibly sympathetic to our situations.<\/p>\n

There was another, slightly unorthodox route for treating mental health in the mission. A local psychiatrist, who was also a member of the church, would meet with missionaries in the field and prescribe antidepressant or SSRIs if needed, but in lieu of an expensive trip to the pharmacy, would provide a stockpile of samples that drug companies passed out to doctors. Thus, my first experience with taking antidepressants was out of a paper bag full of pop-out foil sheets of Lexapro. To this day, it\u2019s probably the most consistent and useful psychiatric treatment I\u2019ve ever received. Even still, with my mostly positive experiences with mission healthcare, I always felt the overall approach severely lacking.<\/p>\n

All of my good experiences with health care on my mission were offered pro bono by members of the church. One dentist I saw on my mission flat out told me he wasn\u2019t giving me the best care, but the cheapest and quickest, in case my parents couldn\u2019t fit the bill. They knew they couldn\u2019t, so I wasn\u2019t really in a position to complain since he was seeing me for free, but how is that okay in the first place? Especially when missionaries are required to pay their own way. Which I think is the point of the Slate <\/em>piece. How can an institution as large and financially stable as the LDS church<\/a> continue to send out young people into potentially dangerous situations without a guarantee of adequate health care?<\/p>\n

So Stern practiced shoddy journalism. That sucks, but it also sucks that the conversation can\u2019t be turned around to the more useful, \u201cwhat is the problem and how can we fix it?\u201d These stories might not be the norm, but that doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t reflect a real problem in the missionary structure of the Church. It\u2019s like the health care debates of a few years ago, when Obamacare opponents claimed that they received excellent health treatment in America, so what\u2019s the problem? The problem is that treatment is not universal, and in the church, \u201cleadership roulette\u201d is a lousy excuse for letting these kids get sick.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t take a lot to fix. For example, would we see a significant drop in missionaries if the monthly cost was raised enough to offer medical coverage for missionaries? Without relying on volunteer services from members? I doubt it. But even further, would it be such a bad idea to call retired doctors from the church to serve as mission medical consultants as an option for the first call if a missionary is sick, rather than the mission president\u2019s wife, who in many cases has no medical experience? Or mission therapists, an expansion of LDS family services, to confront the ongoing struggle of mental illness among missionaries?<\/p>\n

These are simple solutions, and worth considering as long as we don\u2019t get distracted by bad journalism. But we\u2019ll never get there if we don\u2019t expose ourselves to the idea that the Church and its mission program are susceptible\u00a0to flaws.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care, and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood in response. Both are worth a read, but the gist is that Stern reported that missionaries are often denied medical care in the mission field, and Reiss pointed out that his piece lacked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2062,"featured_media":3124,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[215,86,10],"tags":[261,103,263,1381,262,1370,257],"class_list":["post-3119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-missionary","category-mormonism","tag-healthcare","tag-lds","tag-mental-health","tag-missionary","tag-missions","tag-mormonism","tag-slate"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Should We Take Away From Slate's Missionary Health Article?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care, and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood in response. Both\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Should We Take Away From Slate's Missionary Health Article?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care, and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood in response. Both\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Peculiar People\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-10-15T17:43:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-10-17T05:57:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/170\/2015\/10\/12166160_606481719780_352061214_n1-e1444932046457.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"401\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"267\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cody Ray Shafer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cody Ray Shafer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/\",\"name\":\"What Should We Take Away From Slate's Missionary Health Article?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-10-15T17:43:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-10-17T05:57:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#\/schema\/person\/28fcd832c5787473a017331a0c1f2e7b\"},\"description\":\"We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care, and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood in response. Both\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Should We Take Away From Slate’s Missionary Health Article?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/\",\"name\":\"Peculiar People\",\"description\":\"Mormonism through the World and the World through Mormonism\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#\/schema\/person\/28fcd832c5787473a017331a0c1f2e7b\",\"name\":\"Cody Ray Shafer\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5857320ef2adf67e186470ecdbfcf61e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5857320ef2adf67e186470ecdbfcf61e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Cody Ray Shafer\"},\"description\":\"Cody Ray Shafer is a writer and pop culture critic currently based in Salt Lake City.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/author\/cschafer\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Should We Take Away From Slate's Missionary Health Article?","description":"We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care, and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood in response. Both","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Should We Take Away From Slate's Missionary Health Article?","og_description":"We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care, and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood in response. Both","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/","og_site_name":"Peculiar People","article_published_time":"2015-10-15T17:43:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-10-17T05:57:25+00:00","og_image":[{"width":401,"height":267,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/170\/2015\/10\/12166160_606481719780_352061214_n1-e1444932046457.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cody Ray Shafer","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Cody Ray Shafer","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/","name":"What Should We Take Away From Slate's Missionary Health Article?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-10-15T17:43:48+00:00","dateModified":"2015-10-17T05:57:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#\/schema\/person\/28fcd832c5787473a017331a0c1f2e7b"},"description":"We posted recently about the Slate piece by Mark Joseph Stern about missionary health care, and Jana Reiss\u2019 piece at Flunking Sainthood in response. Both","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/2015\/10\/what-should-we-take-away-from-slates-missionary-health-article\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Should We Take Away From Slate’s Missionary Health Article?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/","name":"Peculiar People","description":"Mormonism through the World and the World through Mormonism","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#\/schema\/person\/28fcd832c5787473a017331a0c1f2e7b","name":"Cody Ray Shafer","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5857320ef2adf67e186470ecdbfcf61e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5857320ef2adf67e186470ecdbfcf61e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Cody Ray Shafer"},"description":"Cody Ray Shafer is a writer and pop culture critic currently based in Salt Lake City.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/author\/cschafer\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2062"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/peculiarpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}