| Introduction
It often happens in contemporary practice that we encounter motivations behind being a medical doctor which are very different from those that lie behind being a Catholic medical doctor. Both the economic factor and prestige count a great deal. There are examples of medical doctors who earn a great deal of money and who are surrounded by a halo of fame and prestige; and many young people would like to be like them. It is not unusual to encounter medical doctors who have come to the end of their careers after many sacrifices and forms of privation and who declare that they can now take what is theirs. Patients interest such doctors solely in their capacity as clients from whom they can gain the greatest possible advantage. They are only interesting because of their wallets, rather than being seen as people who are in need of medical help and care. In the old times, in the Greek culture there was a proverb about the doctor's figure, that says the doctor was "solicitous like an angel to heal, speedy like a demon to receive".
However, not all medical doctors are like that. There are medical doctors who greatly honour the medical profession and who constitute a valuable example - in terms of generosity and expertise - to be followed.
Recently there is opinion that there is a change in the actual outlook of the physician's identity. It says that in history there are three ways of looking at a physician. First is classical: the physician as the possessor of the science and art of health, and is the indisputable authority to whom the world of medicine has to obey, especially the patient has to obey scrupulously to his dictums in order to get cured. No dispute over his decisions. The health institution is the final authority. Here we have a paternalistic figure of the physician.
Some do not agree with this figure of a physician. According to their view, the physician is not the indisputable authority, but is to listen to the opinion of the patient, who, in fact, will have to decide whether or not to comply with the physician's prescriptions. It is the patient and in very many cases the family of the patient who influence the decisions, and the physician's role is to propose a way and not to impose a norm to be followed. This the democratic age and its norms are also valid for the medical field where everything is discussed before arriving at a consensus.
However, there are others who say that there is another way to look at the physician, because, given the limits of democracy, he has to stand to the "bureaucratic" tests. The physician is counted much as a depository of the medical knowledge, including the consensus of the patient and those around him, in as much as he conforms himself to the health institutions and thereby behaving himself as a qualified member of that system. Physician-patient relationship is not important. So also is the physician-institution relationship. The key issue is following the regulations of the health trajectory, which in general, with pre-established systems, is treated with the social conjunctive of an enormous health care.
Here, I think, it is essential to think about the person of the physician, and especially of the Catholic physician. This is a moment of crisis and the necessity of clarity is very much essential.
Towards a response let us think about an explicit answer from the Catholic Church. It must be recognised that this paper is written in a language which is incomprehensible to those who do not have faith. For the physician who does not have faith in Christ and His Church, everything that is stated here does not have sense or meaning. It is something which is absurd and which seems to be directed towards people who are mad or foolish.
This is the same for faith in general. St.Paul said that the account of the Messiah who was crucified and rose again was offensive to the Jews and seemed madness for non-Jews. However, this is very much wiser than the whole of human wisdom, and what can seem a weakness in God is in reality stronger than the whole of human power (I Cor 1:23-25).
Basing myself on the meaning of the identity of the Christian as being something which follows from his baptism, I would like to dwell solely upon the identity of the Catholic medical doctor as a medical doctor.
I will take as my starting point the "Charter for Health Care Workers" published by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, which in turn refers to the thought of the Holy Father John Paul II on the question and to the identity of the physician as outlined by the Pope. With reference to that identity I will seek to outline certain ideas about how it should be interpreted and commented upon. The Charter of the Health Care Workers
The Charter for Health Care Workers lays down the following in relation to the Catholic medical doctor. His profession calls him to be a guardian and servant of human life. This must be done through a vigilant and caring presence at the side of the sick. Health care activity is based on an interpersonal relationship. It is a meeting between trust and conscience. The trust of one who is ill and suffering and who entrusts himself to another man who can help him in his need and who comes to his assistance to care for him and cure him.
The sick person is not only a clinical case but a sick man toward whom the medical doctor must adopt an attitude of sincere sympathy, suffering with him through a personal participation in the concrete situations of each individual sick person. Infirmity and suffering are phenomena which, analysed in depth, go way beyond medicine and touch upon the essence of the human condition in this world.
The medical doctor who takes care of these situations must be aware that it is precisely here that the whole of his humanity must be involved, and absolute dedication is required of him. This is the mission which characterises him and it is the fruit of a call or vocation that the medical doctor listens to, personified in the suffering and imploring face of the sick person who in entrusted to his care. Here there is the connection with the mission of the medical doctor to give life and to give it in abundance (Jn 10:10). This life transcends physical life to the point of reaching the heights of the Most Holy Trinity; it is the new and eternal life which consists in communion with the Father, towards whom each and every man is called freely in the Son, by work of the Holy Spirit.
The medical doctor is like the Good Samaritan who goes to the side of the sick man and makes himself his neighbour through understanding and sympathy, in a word through his charity. In this way the medical doctor takes part in the love of God as an instrument of its diffusion, and in this way is infused with the love of God for man.
This is the healing charity of Christ, who passed by doing good and healing (Acts 10:38). And at the same time it is charity towards Christ who is present in every sick person. He is the person who is cared for in every man and woman, "I was sick and you visited me", as the Lord will say in the Final Judgement (Mt 25:31-40).
It is thus more than evident that the identity of the medical doctor is the identity received from his therapeutic mission, from his ministry of life. He is a collaborator of God in the recovery of the health of the body of the infirm person. The Church sees the work of the medical doctor as a moment of his ministry, and sees service to the infirm as an integral part of her mission.
She well knows that physical malady imprisons the spirit, in the same way as malady of the spirit has a negative impact on the body. In this way, the medical doctor, through his therapeutic ministry, takes part in the pastoral and evangelising action of the Church. The paths he has to tread are those indicated by the dignity of the human person, and thus moral law. And this is especially the case when he has to carry out his activity in the field of biogenetics and biotechnology - bioethics furnish approaches and set out his principles for action.(1) The Identity of the Medical Doctor
In this position of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, which is, as is clear from the references, also the position of John Paul II, is to be found a summary of the Christian identity of the medical doctor. As I have already pointed out, I will seek to reflect upon this identity and specify in particular that this is an identity received from a vocation and a mission which is at the roots of a ministry which is very special: the ministry of life, the ministry of health. Vocation and the Church
Let us begin by referring to the meaning of vocation within the Church. It is very often the case that etymologies help us to go back to the original meaning of words that we use frequently but which seem to be worn out by use. One of these is the word "Chiesa" ("Church"). Let us examine the two etymologies of this word - the Greek and the Latin. The Greek etymology leads us to the verb "ekkalein" ("chiamare" or "to call"). "Chiesa" ("Church") is the plural participle of the verb "ekkalein" and means "the called".
Thus, placing ourselves within the Latin etymological perspective, the Church is the effect of "vocation". "Vocation", speaking in etymological terms, is the Latin substantive of the Latin verb "vocare" - to call (the same as "ekkalein"). It means, therefore, the same call that unites the called, that is to say which gathers together the Church. Vocation, therefore, makes the Church.
The only "vocation" or fundamental call is that which God makes through the Word, by which He calls to life everything that exists, and this call, this primicerius "vocation" is Christ, who is the Word of God through which everything that exists and each one of us is called to life (cf Eph. 1:3-10; Col. 1:15-20). In particular, it is interesting to note that the highest form of call today made by God in relation to everything that exists, the highest presence of Christ in the world, achieves realisation in the eucharist, which is a memorial, making Christ present in the today of history (cf Lk 22:19).
In this call of God we discover three essential moments which constitute it and which we can summerise with the three following words: "to be", "with", and "for". This is because we are called to be (to exist), with God, for others. This, for example, we can observe in the call that Christ makes to his disciples (Mk 3:14-15), and above all in the call that he makes to the Virgin Mary for her to become the Mother of God the Messiah (Lk 1:26-38). This, however, is a paradigm which covers the whole of the history of Salvation.
These three words of vocation will help us as a model which we can employ to reflect on the doctrine of the Pope in relation to the identity of the Catholic medical doctor, something which we set out in the "Charter for Health Care Workers". 1. "To Be"
When we speak about "being" in vocation we speak about total existence. God speaks and everything begins to exist. As Genesis declares: "And God said: let there be light. And there was light" (Gen 1:3). When God utters his Word this becomes practice - it does what He says and everything achieves its consistency, its beginning, an end, its totality.
When we speak about the authentic Catholic medical doctor, he is such because of an authentic vocation received from God Himself, from Whom he receives his whole existence, although naturally enough without excluding the collaboration with the call which is effected by the medical doctor himself.
What is the medical vocation to which he is called by God? Let us now outline certain of the features of the "to be" of this call. 1.1. Profession
First of all, let us state that God calls the medical doctor to a profession which is not the same as being called to disengage from another office. In history three professions are principally recognised: that of the priest, that of the physician, and that of the governor or judge. It should be said that the profession is linked to the profession of faith; it is something with a religious character. A profession is not something of a strictly juridical nature because what is juridical in a positive sense can be fulfilled or not, or something which can change according to the wish of those who contract an obligation, but a profession is an obligation and a responsibility which is contracted with God Himself. It is a responsibility, and responsibility means, in essential terms, the ability to respond. The word "respond" comes from the Greek "spenden", which originally meant "a sacrifice of libation to God". Professional responsibility at a medical level means a "compromesso" ("an agreement") (from the Greek word "syngrafein" which means "to write together") which is written as a dual encounter between man and God.
From this sacredness of the medical profession there sprang the Hippocratic oath - the oath not to do harm to the patient, to act always for his best interests, and to be totally in favour of life at all of its various stages. This is not an oath which is made to a patient but is something which is addressed directly to God. The vocation of the medical doctor in this context is a vocation that is born from the love of God, and it is God whom the medical doctor follows in this profession, as the highest loved Good.(2) 1.2. The Love of God in the Physician
However, despite the sublime character of this Hippocratic position, it is limited and defective. I referred to the love of God, but this love, according to the classical Greek mentality, the mentality of Plato and Socrates, to which Hippocrates belonged, is defective because it assumes need and is never fullness. Indeed, for classical Greek philosophy God does not love. He is infinitely lovable, but He does not love, because to love means lack and God cannot be defective in any way. Love is only specific to man who is in need and who wants to obtain satisfaction; it is not something which belongs to God,who is All-perfect. In Greek mythology loves is born with Poros and Penia, in the marriage of Aphrodite. Poros represents the expedient, need, and Penia represents poverty. Uniting need with poverty, love is born as self-interested desire.
This mentality is completely corrected by divine Revelation: God himself is Love. This is the deepest definition of God. His love is not lack of something but the highest diffusion of His own goodness, which is such that God the Father so loved this world - which he created out of a diffusive love in itself - as to give his Only Begotten Son to it to the point of death (Jn 3:16).
For this reason, the Christian medical profession centres around love. But this is not a self-interested and impoverished love, a Hippocratic love. It is rather a love which imitates the perfect love of God and has its paradigm in the Good Samaritan who in this way suffers together with the sick person, feels sorry for him, and supplies everything that is needed for him to regain his health. In this way the Good Samaritan is the example to imitate for the Christian medical doctor. The Good Samaritan is the figure of Christ who had compassion for the whole of sick and fallen humanity, and who raised it up to its deification. He is infinite love and he is both in he who loves and in he whom is loved - he is in both kinds of individuals and with fullness. In this way the Good Samaritan is the figure who determines the identity of the medical doctor, who has such compassion for the patient that he does everything he can to heal him, out of love for fullness.(3)
When speaking about the love that the medical doctor must have towards God, and thus towards his patients, the Holy Father Pius XII spoke to us about the commandments of the law of God and their bearing upon medicine. He spoke about the first commandment, which exhorts us to love God above all things, and of the second commandment which tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves. The idea is that the identity of the medical doctor is to be found in this love when his relations with the patient are permeated by humanity, by comprehension, by sensitivity and by care and concern.
Pope Pius XII completed this picture of the physician by referring to two other commandments, and above all to the fifth commandment: "do not kill", and to the eighth: "do not bear false witness".(4) 1.3. Respect for Life and the Defence of Life
The fifth commandment reminds us that the identity of the Christian medical doctor lies in the fact that because of the love that he is obliged to have towards God and his patient, the physician is totally obliged to defend life at every stage but above all else at the weakest stages, such as those which are to be found at the beginning and the end of life. His personality is marked out by a clear and absolute "no" to abortion and euthanasia. The fifth commandment covers the whole of the meaning of human life which is seen as a gift given by God in sole stewardship to man and woman, and which should only have its origins within marriage. 1.4. Medical Training
His Holiness Pius XII observed of the fifth commandment, "do not bear false witness", that the physician has a clear duty towards truth, both the truth of illness and health and the truth of medical science.(5)
The identity of the medical doctor comes from the training that he receives, but if we look at what he receives in many faculties of medicine we can see that this is a very weak kind of training. Indeed, the curriculum of the medical career is based upon two essential parts. The first is a basic knowledge and the second involves knowledge obtained through the clinical sciences which are divided up into disciplines, or from analysis of the various organs of the human body.
It is obvious that this teaching must be imparted, but what is often encountered is a biotechnical reduction. In the presentation of the various subjects the anthropocentric values are lost, as indeed are the ethical, affective and existential values. The medical doctor becomes defined by the needs of the patient and by the requirements of an economistic health-care system which is completely indifferent towards the violation of human rights, and especially of human life.
It often happens that we encounter in the present-day clinical applications the paradigm of fragmentation and reduction of the patient to organs or biological and technological functions and medicines and drugs. There is an attempt to reach dominion by fragmented specialised knowledge without a vision of the overall picture through knowledge and expertise connected with other human fields beyond that of medicine. The idea of health is that of passive adaptation to pathogenic stimuli of a biophysical nature. Clinical adaptation very often takes place with exclusive reference to the requirements (including those of an economic character) of the national health-care system. One can observe a loss of ethical values in medicine and the anonymity of patients. One can also observe that little value is bestowed on the existential aspects of the medical profession, on the figure of the patient, of the medical doctor, and of the nurse.
In response to all these questions and issues connected with "being" a medical doctor from the beginning of the professional training that he receives, a series of methods have been formulated which have been conceived in order to make teaching active, especially through so-called PBL (Problem Basic Learning) and the method of teaching directed towards the community. This last sees the medical person as a person who has to be skilled and competent at the relational and scientific levels, is integrated into a communitarian reality, is able to co-operate with other health-care figures and administer the resources which are available in a process of continual training, is always an advocate of the health of the patient, and is able to link theoretical knowledge with medical practice, thereby engaging in constant training.
This kind of medical training would provide a new understanding of health and illness, and would engage in the prevention and treatment of illness within the context of the individuality of the patient which is completed in his family and in the whole of society. It would thus develop a stage of initial learning based more upon curiosity and constant investigation than upon passive acquisition. It would reduce the weight of information and would favour direct contact with patients through a personalised analysis of their problems and the whole of their curriculum.
One should, therefore, draw up a programme based upon the following set of principles: 1. the existence of a comprehensive and final meaning of medical knowledge; 2. the definition of its epistemological orientation; 3. the definition of the values, motivations, psychological maturity, and quality of the objective knowledge and relational methodological capacities to be applied to the practice of the profession; 4. the definition of the values, motivations, capacities and quality of the training of teachers; 5. the definition of the general and specific objectives of training; 6. the definition of the didactic methods. These principles accept the epistemological knowledge of present-day medicine which sees health as a psycho-biological construction brought about by the accessibility and quality of the resources of the person, and which is directed towards providing an overall response to the fundamental questions of human existence.(6) 1.5. Permanent Training
The identity of the medical doctor is not modelled once and for all by his initial training. It must be extended through permanent training. It requires a very careful instruction of medical students, but at the same time a continuous and progressive training of the teachers who teach medical teaching courses, a training which at times is lacking. It is above all the teachers who are responsible for the promotion of new medical doctors, which is something which they must never facilitate if they in all conscience see that a student does not have the capacity to carry out such a sensitive mission.
In virtue of the eighth commendment all medical doctors must respect professional secrecy, and as has already been observed in this paper they must have a well-founded medical learning and culture which must constantly improve through permanent training.(7) 2. "With"
We have observed that the second feature of the Christian vocation is expressed through a readiness to engage "with"; with God. This means that the whole of that vocation exists to be with God our Lord who is He who makes man able to carry out his mission, which without God's strength it would be pointless to engage in. We can read in the Book of Exodus what Moses says to God on Mount Horeb: "who am I to present myself before the Pharoh of Egypt and free the Israelites from Egypt, and God answered: I will be with you" (Ex. 3:12). 2.1. The Transmittance of Christ the Physician
In this contrast we can delineate the deepest values which must characterise and shape the identity of the Catholic medical doctor. The personality of the Christian physician is to be identified in this way as the transmittance of Christ the medical doctor. Christ invited his apostles to take care of every form of suffering and illness, and said to them: "I will be with you until the end of the world" (Mk 16:17; Mt 18:20). The medical doctor thus engages in the healing ministry at the side of the apostles as a continuation of the mission of Christ and as his transmittance. We have to understand this transmittance in all its breadth. The medical doctor must express the whole of the life of Christ because this is the presence of Christ within the medical doctor. This is because Christ cares for every infirmity and illness through all of his actions understood in overall terms. The miracles of healing which he worked, including the raising of the dead, were not definitive in his struggle against the evil that is within humanity, against its suffering and death, but only a sign of the profound reality which is contained in his death and his resurrection. 2.2. Pain
Jesus took upon himself all forms of suffering, all forms of pain, all forms of infirmities without any kind of exception, and included them in his own death as the death of God made man, and this so that nothing connected with pain was excluded. And from his death he undid death itself, he conquered it with the fullness of his resurrection. One of the great questions of the medical doctor has always been the problem of pain, but this question finds its answer here alone when pain does not appear as something which is negative but only as a positivity which culminates certainly in death but in a fertile death of resurrection.
In the same way the physician must care for and treat in a way which transmits the death and resurrection of Christ. To obtain this transmittance there needs to be an identification of the medical doctor as such, as a healer, with the healing Christ. This identification, today, takes place in particular in the eucharist and in the other sacraments. The sacraments are the historical presence of Christ in today's time, in the concrete moment which we traverse in life. 2.3. Health
As a result, the medical doctor must realise that health is an overall phenomenon and he must not speak about physical health as being something radical different from overall health -something we call eternal health, or to put it in more suitable terms, salvation. For this reason, the ministry of the medical doctor is an ecclesial ministry which is directed towards the salvation itself of man from his body, but which also includes other aspects. It is for this reason that we have described health as a dynamic tension towards physical, mental, social and spiritual harmony, and not only the absence of illness, which gives man the ability to fulfil the mission which man has entrusted to him, according to the stage of life in which he finds himself.
The mission of the physical doctor, therefore, is to work so that this dynamic tension towards overall health is achieved, as indeed is required at every stage of the life of this concrete man his patient, so that he can carry out the mission which God has entrusted to him.
Hence it is incongrous to reduce the medical function merely to the physical-chemical dimension of illness. Its function is of an overall character and in addition must not be static. It must form a part of the dynamism of the patient which works towards his own harmony.
In this context, death does not appear as a frustration for the physician but as his triumph. This is because he has followed the patient in such a way that his patient has been able to express his talents at each stage of his life. When the patient arrives at the end of his life the medical function of the physician ceases, not with a cry of impotence but in the satisfaction of the knowledge that a mission has been carried to its fulfilment, both by the patient and by the medical doctor himself.
In this way the physician is really with Christ and his profession is identified with this communion with Christ himself, and thus the medical doctor unites with God the Father in the same way as a son comes to his father, and his professional love becomes converted into the action of the Love of God, which is the Holy Spirit. For this reason, the Christian medical doctor is the person who is always guided by the Holy Spirit. >From the Holy Spirit and with the Holy Spirit one grasps all the empathy which must exist between the medical doctor and his patient, all the due humanisation of medicine and all the need for realisation and permanent training, because the Love of the Holy Spirit makes the medical doctor a person who is above all open to others. This is what he has committed himself to do before God with his profession of Faith which means his medical profession. In this way we come to delineate the third dimension of the medical identity - to be for others. This is the "for" of his vocation and his professional identity. 3. "For"
When God chose Moses it is very clear that he did this in order to ensure that his people escaped from the power of the Egyptians. God said: "I have come to save you from the power of the Egyptians" (Ex. 3:8).
The medical doctor cannot become shut up within himself. He cannot merely think that he now has enough money, that he no longer needs to work, and that for this reason he can retire from his profession. A real physician is a physician for the whole of his life and if he has really received this vocation he will always maintain it, and he must practice it for the benefit of humanity as a mission received for the good of everybody, and in relation to which he must render account to God when God says to him: "I was sick and you visited me"(Mt 25:36-43). 3.1. Openness to the Patient
We have observed that the love of the medical profession follows the love of God which is in itself diffusive. The medical doctor cannot imprison his knowledge in pure theories and laboratories. He must spread it for the benefit of the community. He has received the gift of caring for life and enabling it to grow. His vocation is for life, and never for death. To be for death would be to extinguish the mission which God has entrusted to him for each person. Pope John Paul II declares that to the religious ministry is joined today the healing mission of medical doctors in upholding human life and all those special contingencies in which life itself can be compromised by an intention of human will.
In their deepest identity medical doctors carry with them the fact of being ministers of life and never instruments of death. This is the innermost nature of their noble profession. They are called to humanise medicine and the places in which they practice their profession, and to ensure that the most advanced forms of technology are used for life and not for death; and in this they should always have as their highest model Christ himself, the physician of souls and bodies.(8)
Pope Pius XII declared that the Catholic medical doctor must place his knowledge, his powers, his heart and his devotion at the service of sick people. He must understand that he and his patients encounter each other placed beneath the will of God. Medicine is a reflection of the goodness of God. The physician must help to ensure that the sick person accepts his illness, and he himself must protect himself against being dazzled by technology and make sure that the gifts given to him by God bear fruit. He must not yield to the pressures to make him engage in attacks upon life. He must be strong when faced with the temptations of materialism.(9)
The good medical doctor must in this way possess the dianoetic and political virtues and ensure that they really are virtues, that is to say by adopting an approach whereby both the virtues of the theoretical sciences and the virtues of actual practice can meet in him as though they were his second nature.(10) 3.2. The Fundamental Qualities of the Medical Doctor
Thus we come to categorising and characteristing the fundamental qualities of the medical doctor under five headings: awareness of responsibilities; humility; respect; love; and truthfulness. Awareness of responsibility leads him to work with the sick man and to be aware that a medical doctor is the person who points out the paths to be followed. Humility tells him that the medical doctor protects his patients and not the contrary; humility leads him to see himself as the relative of the sick person. The medical doctor cannot speak about "his" patients - the patients must speak about "their" doctor. The physician must receive his patients in a way which follows what is written in the architrave of an old German hospital: "recipere quasi Christum", that is to say as though they were Christ himself. Respect and love in relation to the sick person, something which has already been discussed in this paper, are the bases of his humility. He knows that he is the steward of a mission for which he does not possess the necessary strength but he also knows that he receives such strength from those who direct him towards that mission. Truthfulness contains in itself being aware of the great trust which is given him by the sick person with regard to revealing his innermost problems and difficulties. Truth is required in both diagnosis and treatment not only at a physical level but in an overall sense, that is to say from a mental, social, psychic and spiritual point of view. He must never carry out experiments on the sick person if he sees that the danger is not proportionate to the benefits which he is seeking to obtain. Such a policy must be absolutely necessary and the patient must give his consent. The medical doctor must inform the sick person about the evolution and development of his illness, tell him the truth about his condition, and all this at the appropriate moment and in the ways that are the most suitable. He must link his action with the action of the priest because both missions - the mission of the priest and the mission of the physician - are intimately bound up.(11) 3.3. Portrait of the Medical Doctor
The "Portrait of a Physician" from sixteenth-century Spain is certainly of great contemporary relevance. This portrait employed a flowery language to describe Enrique Jorge Enriquez, and the words which were used were the following: "the physician must have fear of God and be very humble, not proud or vainglorious, he must charitable with the poor, meek, benevolent, friendly and not vengeful. He must not reveal secrets, he must not talk too much, he must not be a gossip, he must not flatter, and he must not be envious. He must be prudent, moderate, not overly bold...he must be restrained and practice honesty and listen with great attention; he must work for his art and hate sloth. The physician must be very well read and know how to accept that others are right"(12).
At the present time we refer to medical excellence, that is to say to what Aristotle called "teleios iatròs" (the perfect physician) and to what Galenos termed "aristòs iatròs" (the best physician). 3.4. Morality and Law
In this paper it has been observed by way of a principle that the medical profession is something which rises above law and is to be found in the dimensions of morality. This is certainly true, but we cannot depart from medical Law. Medical law without a suitable morality would be mere arbitrariness based upon unconfessable interests. Morality without medical law would be something confined to general principles and which was without direct application. The rules and regulations of medical law must be sufficienctly clear and brief to facilitate the action of the medical doctor. The guiding principle is always the same: the purpose of the medical doctor is to help and to heal, never to do harm, and never to kill.
Special reference should also be made to the field of ethics, the field of morality, in which the medical doctor must be competent, even though it very often happens that he is not a specialist. For this reason we need bioethical committees in every health-care centre and their creation in teaching institutions to achieve an open dialogue with specialists who belong to the various relevant disciplines.
In this way the medical doctor becomes aware that he can bear witness to God in all medical, trade union, political etc. contexts, and can be a valid instrument of ecumenical dialogue with other religions, in particular because illness does not recognise religious boundaries. In this way the medical doctor will actively belong to the Church both as an individual and as the member of a group.(13) 3.5. Team Work
In order to the carry out this very demanding mission, the medical doctor must not remain shut up in his own individuality but must open himself first and foremost to other medical doctors and have sufficient humility to work with other people and in a team, both with regard to strictly structural questions and in those relational areas that bear upon fields where he is not necessarily in charge because in a certain sense they are beyond his competence - for example where sociological, anthropological and political issues are at stake, or in technical fields which are outside his profession, i.e. everything connected with the field of computers and informatics.
Thus within this openness in the Spanish medical field there emerges what two authors call the decalogue of the new medical doctor, which they outline in the following way:
1. Work in a multidisciplinary team and with a sole ultimate director. 2. The more scientific is the professional person, the better. 3. The human aspects of professional practice should become more emphasised. 4. Action should be adapted to scientifically allowed diagnostic and therepeutic protocols. 5. Medical doctors should be aware of expenditure. In addition to the protocols the guidelines of good practice should be followed. 6. The medical doctor should facilitate working together and solidarity with work colleagues and patients. 7. The medical doctor should believe that all action of care can involve preventive action and thus the promotion of health. 8. The medical doctor should constantly bear in mind that he must take care of the need to obtain satisfaction for the user of the service. 9. The special patient attention units should become stronger, and should give increased space to the complaints and suggestions produced by patients. 10. It is of fundamental importance to apply ethical principles to professional activity.(14) Conclusion
Being a Catholic medical doctor is a ministry which springs from a vocation within the Church. It is the mission of healing. It is strongly linked to God our Father and expresses Christ the physician, full of Love which is the Holy Spirit. To be a medical doctor is a path by which to reach and achieve the fullness of the human being. It involves a special nearness to, and intimacy with, God; and it also means an openness and a total giving to other people. This, then, is the Catholic identity of the medical doctor - to be the transmittance of the healing Christ. |
