Catholic Teachers in Medicine

Here is the text of an message written by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, the president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry on the profile of the Catholic teacher of medicine. In part:

If the professor of medicine is a Catholic, then this transcendence and this victory over death are not merely beautiful desires which, for many, in our secularized culture, do not go beyond good intentions and palliatives for the failure of death, but rather they are based on the same reality of an irrefutable historical event, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On professing this faith, the teacher of medicine becomes a triumphant professor. He and his students advance toward medical culture with the certainty and the joy of knowing that the progress in health science is a foretaste of the full health that they will find for themselves and for their patients in the resurrected Christ.

It is obvious that this is incomprehensible for those who do not profess this faith. For a physician who does not have faith in Christ and in his Church, nothing here means anything, and rather it is something absurd which would appear to be for ignorant and mad people as it goes against the biological experimental knowledge which they believe to be the only one valid in medicine: "evidence-based medicine." However, here is another type of evidence, even stronger than laboratory evidence, the evidence of a faith based on an irrefutable fact which is reached for the same reason, but which arises from a free and firm decision of the will of each person. St Paul already said that the announcement of a crucified Messiah was offensive for the Jews and madness for the Gentiles, but it is much wiser than all human wisdom, and what may seem to be weakness in God, is stronger than all human strength (1 Corinthians 1:23-25).

Catholic Physicians Stand as Targets

Here's a bit from the California Catholic Daily regarding physicians who practice medicine in a way consistent with their faith. And they have become targets of those who promote pagan values.

Nationwide, "doctors are becoming more assertive in refusing to treat patients for religious reasons,” said an Aug. 2 USA Today story. Even in California, where two doctors face a lawsuit from a lesbian refused fertility treatment, some doctors are taking a stand for conscience.

But one doctor, George Delgado, is concerned about the future of medical practice for physicians who have such convictions. Delgado, a Family Practice/OB Gyn physician, is the Medical Director at Culture of Life Family Services, a non-profit medical clinic devoted to offering medical help with a Catholic perspective. It is located in San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood – a name synonymous with the homosexual lifestyle.

Delgado has practiced for 16 years and has never performed an abortion, although he admits that he once prescribed artificial contraceptives. He says a deeper conversion to his own Catholic faith led him to stop prescribing them: “After reading Humanae Vitae, I was resolved to always practice according to the Church’s teachings.”

Physicians in California and elsewhere may soon lose the right to practice according to their ideals. Two such doctors, Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton, both OB/Gyns at North Coast Women’s Care in Vista, California, are being sued by a former patient who is angry that Brody would not artificially inseminate her because she was a lesbian. The case is yet to be heard by the state Supreme Court. In 2003, the fourth district state appeals court ruled against the physicians

Here's the agenda. Accept, embrace and promote our values over yours or we'll sue you too. Yes, the left is clearly the "tolerant" ideology, isn't it. (Sorry, couldn't help the rant.)

Additional Vatican Commentary Concerning Care of Those in a "Vegetative State"

Here is additional commentary from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in regard to USCCB inquiries regarding the treatment of those in a "vegetative state." In part:

2) In response to those who doubt the “human quality” of patients in a “permanent vegetative state”, it is necessary to reaffirm that “the intrinsic value and personal dignity of every human being do not change, no matter what the concrete circumstances of his or her life. A man, even if seriously ill or disabled in the exercise of his highest functions, is and always will be a man, and he will never become a ‘vegetable’ or an ‘animal’” (no. 3).

3) “The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed. He also has the right to appropriate rehabilitative care and to be monitored for clinical signs of possible recovery. I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory, to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which in the present case consists in providing nourishment to the patient and alleviation of his suffering” (no. 4).

Concerning the Care of Patients in a "Vegetative State"

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has responded to certain questions that have arisen regarding the care of patients in a "vegetative state."

RESPONSES TO CERTAIN QUESTIONS
OF THE UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS
CONCERNING ARTIFICIAL NUTRITION AND HYDRATION

First question: Is the administration of food and water (whether by natural or artificial means) to a patient in a “vegetative state” morally obligatory except when they cannot be assimilated by the patient’s body or cannot be administered to the patient without causing significant physical discomfort?

Response: Yes. The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented.

Second question: When nutrition and hydration are being supplied by artificial means to a patient in a “permanent vegetative state”, may they be discontinued when competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness?

Response: No. A patient in a “permanent vegetative state” is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.




The Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved these Responses, adopted in the Ordinary Session of the Congregation, and ordered their publication.

Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, August 1, 2007.

William Cardinal Levada
Prefect

Angelo Amato, S.D.B.
Titular Archbishop of Sila
Secretary

Welcome!

Catholic Physicians Blog welcomes Paul, who podcasts at Saint Cast. Welcome and we look forward to your contributions.

Psychiatrists and God

From MSNBC:

Psychiatrists are the least religious of all physicians, a nationwide survey reveals.

The study, published in the September issue of the journal Psychiatric Services, also found that religious physicians are more likely to refer patients to a clergy person than a psychiatrist or psychologist.

"Something about psychiatry, perhaps its historical ties to psychoanalysis and the anti-religious views of the early analysts such as Sigmund Freud, seems to dissuade religious medical students from choosing to specialize in this field," said lead study author Farr Curlin, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

Organ Donation

Here's and interesting piece by a physican concerning the ethics and practice of organ donation and the Church's call for the ethical harvest of organs. Dr. John B. Shea, MD, FRCP(C) writes:

Organs are obtained from an unconscious patient after he or she has been called “brain dead” using clinical and technologically acquired information, regarded as diagnostic. The public in general is not aware of the following serious criticisms of
this kind of organ harvesting.

The theory of brain death is highly controversial and can be used for utilitarian purposes.4 The Pontifical Academy of Sciences declared brain death to be “the true criterion for death” in 1985 and again in 1989. However, in February of 2005, Pope John Paul II called for more precise means of establishing that the donor is dead before vital organs are removed. Organ transplants, he continued, are acceptable only when they are conducted in a manner “so as to guarantee respect for life and for the human person.”5

The concept that whole brain death (irreversible loss of function of the cerebrum, cerebellum and brain stem) means the loss of integrated organic unity in a human being has been subjected to a powerful critique by neurologist Alan Shewmon.6 Some physicians question whether we can be sure the entire brain is really dead in patients declared dead in the U.S. by “whole brain,” or in the U.K. by “brain stem,” criteria.7

Neurological criteria are not sufficient for declaration of death when an intact cardio-respiratory system is functioning. These criteria test for the absence of some specific brain reflexes. Functions of the brain that are not considered are temperature control, blood pressure, cardiac rate and salt and water balance. When a patient is declared brain dead, these functions are not only still present, but also frequently active.

There is no consensus on diagnostic criteria for brain death. They are the subject of intense international debate. Various sets of neurological criteria for the diagnosis of brain death are used. A person could be diagnosed as brain dead if one set is used and not be diagnosed as brain dead if another is used.8,9,10,11

A diagnosis of death by neurological criteria is theory, not scientific fact. Also, irreversibility of neurological function is a prognosis, not a medically observable fact. There is also evidence of poor compliance with accepted guidelines of brain death.12

It's worth a read.