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Pope Tells Doctors: Love and Honor the Dignity of Incurable Patients

By Kathleen Gilbert

VATICAN CITY, October 21, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During an audience given to the Italian Society of Surgeons, Pope Benedict XVI exhorted the medical community to recognize the dignity inherent in the medical profession, and never to abandon patients, no matter how incurable or hopeless their condition. In what appeared to be a veiled criticism of the movement towards legalized euthanasia, the Pope urged physicians to recognize especially the dignity of all patients, including the apparently incurable.

Referring to the surgeon conference's theme, "For a Surgery That Respects the Sick," the Holy Father explained that the foundation of medicine should always be "respect for human dignity. In fact, it demands the unconditional respect of every human being, born or unborn, healthy or sick, regardless of the condition in which they find themselves."

Benedict told the doctors at the society's 110th annual conference that although modern medicine has made it far rarer for diseases to remain outside the reach of a diagnosis and cure, a cure-crazed attitude brings the temptation of "abandoning the patient when it is seen that a noticeable result cannot be obtained."

"Even when there is no possibility of healing, much can still be done for the sick," said the pope. "His suffering can be relieved, above all [by] accompanying him in his journey, bettering as much as possible his condition of life."

To accomplish this, Benedict said there must be a renewed appreciation of the patient-doctor relationship, which he said is a highly sacred relationship of mutual respect and trust.

The Pope encouraged doctors to use this trust, not only to respect the will of the patient, but also to help the patient recognize and accomplish their "true good."

"On the one hand, it is undeniable that the will of the patient must be respected,” he said.

"On the other hand, the professional responsibility of doctors must bring them to suggest treatments that aim at the true good of patients, with an awareness that their specific competencies generally make them better capable of evaluating the situation than the patients themselves."

Benedict said that one of the specific missions of medicine is "to take care of the sick person in all of his human expectations," and that physicians should guard against viewing the patient as a mere thing, subject to "the demands of science, technology and the health care organization."  The community must recognize, he said, the "necessity of humanizing medicine, developing those features of medical behavior that best respond to the dignity of the sick person being served.

"Every patient, even the gravely ill one, has an unconditional value, a dignity worthy of being honored."

The Pope also mentioned the family’s essential role in safeguarding a family member against the increasing “sense of alienation that a person inevitably suffers if entrusted to a form of medical care that is highly technological but lacks sufficient human sentiment."

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