Havana, Cuba, Aug 17, 2007 / 08:52 am
In an article published by the magazine Vitral, Doctor Maria De la Luz Casas reminded doctors and students that the practice of medicine should be motivated by the desire to learn science that helps the patient, as “learning in order to have knowledge can be good (but) learning in order to serve can be better.”
“Perhaps it sounds strange to ask that we love our patients, perhaps it is better to say: let’s be committed to their wellbeing. Only this way can we find fulfillment for them and for ourselves,” she wrote in the latest edition of the magazine published by the Diocese of Pinar del Rio.
Patients should not be been seen as mere bodies that need to function, she said, but as “self-reflective and autonomous beings,” whose lives have meaning and “deserve to be respected because they are persons.”
She noted that one of the problems with current technology is that “man is considered to be at the service of science” and that it is often forgotten that while knowledge is good in itself, only knowledge that promotes the good of the person should be applied.