Pope Francis praised a vision of medicine in which “the centrality of the person” forms the basis of patient care, teaching, and research.
This vision, he said, “does not put ideas, techniques, and projects in first place, but the actual person, the patient, to be cared for by understanding his or her story and establishing friendly relationships that heal the heart.”
“Love for the person, especially in his or her condition of fragility, in which the image of Jesus Crucified shines through, is specific to a Christian reality and must never be lost,” the pope said.
The Prefecture of the Papal Household announced on Oct. 18 that Pope Francis would celebrate a Mass on Nov. 5 at the Rome campus of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart marking the 60th anniversary of the Faculty of Medicine’s inauguration.
In his address on Monday, Pope Francis said that the pandemic had revealed the importance of connecting and collaborating to solve common problems in medicine.
“Charity requires a gift: knowledge must be shared, competence must be shared, science must be shared,” he said.
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He added that countries with fewer resources should be helped with vaccines, for example, but not only with the motivation of satisfying wealthy nations’ urgency to be safer faster.
“Remedies must be distributed with dignity, not as pitiful handouts,” he said.
“Medicine is an art, an art that involves head and heart, which combines knowledge and compassion, professionalism and piety, competence and empathy,” Pope Francis commented.
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