Professing medicine faithfully: Theological resources for trying times

Theology Today

Volumn 59, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 355-368

  Mohrmann, Margaret E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

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EID: 60950170462     PISSN: 00405736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004057360205900302     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. Although much of what I have to say in this essay about professionalism pertains as well to other health care professionals, especially nurses, I shall speak explicitly only of physicians; "medicine," whether we would have it so or not, is generally taken to refer to the activities of medical doctors and clinical scientists. The theological challenges posed by the current healthcare climate for the vocation of nursing is worthy of an essay in its own right
2. nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). The work of Paul Ramsey, Joseph Fletcher, James Gustafson, William F. May, Richard McCormick, and others exemplifies the richness of theological resources available to students within medical ethics
3. See, especially, the well-researched and illuminating work of Darrel W. Amundsen in Medicine, Society, and Faith in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)
4. The work of theologian Ronald Cole-Turner on theoretical and pastoral approaches to questions raised by advances in genetics is an excellent example. See, for instance, Ronald Cole-Turner, "Biotechnology: A Pastoral Reflection," Theology Today 59 (2002): 39-54
5. The nature and centrality of the physician-patient relationship within primary care practice is explored from a clinical perspective by Eric J. Cassell in Doctoring: The Nature of Primary Care Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
6. and from an ethical perspective by Harmon L. Smith and Larry R. Churchill in Professional Ethics and Primary Care Medicine: Beyond Dilemmas and Decorum (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1986)
7. Perhaps nowhere are dilemmas about the bounds of professionalism and the risks of intrusion felt more keenly than in recent moves in medical education and research into the ill-defined field of "spirituality and medicine." A consideration of the origins, manifestations, contributions, and unresolved problems of the relatively new engrossment of medicine with "spirituality" (variously defined) would be entirely germane to the topic of this essay, but would occupy most of the allotted space. For well-balanced presentations, and conclusions that fit my own concerns about the topic, see Cynthia B. Cohen, Sondra E. Wheeler, David A. Scott, and the Anglican Working Group in Bioethics, "Prayer as Therapy: A Challenge to Both Religious Belief and Professional Ethics," Hastings Center Report 30/3 (2000), 40-7
8. and "Walking a Fine Line: Physician Inquiries into Patients' Religious and Spiritual Beliefs," Hastings Center Report 31/5 (2001), 29-39
9. Augustine recognized how difficult this can be - and why it is much easier to speak of loving neighbors than of discerning actual needs. He ends the exhortation to neighbor love in his anti-Manichaean treatise on morals on a wistful note: "Would that it were as easy to seek the good of our neighbor, or to avoid hurting him, as it is for one well-trained and kindhearted to love him. These things require more than mere good will, and can be done only by a high degree of thoughtfulness and prudence" (De moribus, 51)
10. A classic source for this concept is Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 1: 55-8
11. Hexameron 6.67