|
The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine |
|
Spirituality, Religious Wisdom, and the Care of the PatientControl in the Context of Illness: A Buddhist/Catholic Dialogue Introduction Alan B. Astrow, M.D. The first dialogue took place at the St. Vincent's Comprehensive Cancer Center on February 9, 2004. Our two speakers were Venerable Nicholas Vreeland, Geshe, Director of the Tibet Center of New York City and Daniel P. Sulmasy, O.F.M., M.D., Ph.D., Director the Bioethics Institute of New York Medical College and Sisters of Charity Chair in Ethics, St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan. The topic was "Control in the Context of Illness: A Buddhist/Catholic dialogue." Control is a crucial spiritual issue for both patients and health care professionals. Illness interferes with our lives and may frustrate our ability to do, to accomplish, and to enjoy. In the face of uncertainty, patients, families, and health care professionals may understandably try to assert control over decisions and outcomes. Power struggles may ensue and interfere with efforts to attend to the genuine needs of patients and their families. The sociologist Arthur W. Frank, in his memoir of his experience being treated for testicular cancer, At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness, notes that in sickness, patients may be viewed as having lost control and physicians come to see that it is their task to restore order. This may lead both patient and physician to believe that they have failed morally when illness is resistant to therapy. Frank suggests that physicians and patients give up the illusion that the body can or should be controlled. "The real question," he asserts, "ought to be not who is in control but whether anyone is." He suggests as an alternative outlook, that physicians and patients "recognize the wonder of the body rather than try to control it" in order to achieve a deeper, more satisfying physician-patient relationship. "The physician and the ill patient enter into a relationship of joint wonder at the body, in which failure is as irrelevant as control," Frank proposes. If Frank is correct, spiritual traditions that promote a disposition of wonder might have practical value for patient care. How, we asked our speakers, how do the Buddhist and Catholic traditions address issues of control in the context of a frustrating illness? Can they offer insights that may also be helpful to individuals who follow other spiritual and/or faith traditions? Can they help us get past the fantasy of control and deliver treatment in a spirit of trust and wonder? Daniel P. Sulmasy, "Control in the Context of
Illness - A Catholic Perspective" Published: September 17, 2004 |
|
