A Dialogue on Compassion and Supererogation in Medicine

Abstract

According to Frankena, “the moral point of view is what Alison Wilde and Heather Badcock did not have.” Most of us, however, are not such extreme examples. We are capable of the moral point of view, but we fail to take the necessary time or make the required efforts. We resist pulling ourselves from other distractions to focus on the plight of others and what we might do to ameliorate their suffering. Perhaps compassion is rooted in understanding what it is that connects us with others rather than what separates us, and rests on developing sufficient awareness, to internalize what our actions, or lack of them, mean in the lives of others.

Diminishing Returns? Risk and the Duty to Care in the Sars Epidemic

“…While philosophers are circumscribed and critical in their discussions of supererogation, and distinguish beneficence as a professional virtue of medicine from a heroic degree of beneficence, some bioethicists and healthcare professionals have taken up the notion of supererogation to argue that doctors should understand their adoption of the profession as the adoption of a supererogatory level of commitment to the altruistic ideals of medicine, 31 even to the point of arguing that accepting pay for one's work is dubious and taking holidays suspect. 32 R.S. Downie, on the other hand, has long disputed the notion that doctors have a special moral calling, and that the practice of medicine is in any sense especially beneficent or altruistic.…”

Does palliative sedation produce an ethical resolution to avoid the demand for euthanasia in a Muslim Country?

“…[ 30 ] On the other hand, Thomasma and Kushner separates the term cure from heal and asserts that medicine can merely cure, but not heal. [ 31 ] He says that healing, which is associated with a person's suffering, requires compassion, which has the ability even to heal a patient who cannot be cured by medicine. All these statements indicate a conceptual complexity but also a close connection between compassion and pain and suffering.…”

Compassion and Mercy in the Practice of Medicine

“…The compassionate physician has the capacity to experience the suffering of another and to experience something of the total impact of the illness, that is, the associated fears, the anxiety, and the illness' assault on the whole person, reflected in loss of freedom and the patient's sense of utter vulnerability. However, this response is not true compassion unless it is followed by a willingness to make some sacrifice, to go out of one's way in order to help (5). Without this practical commitment to help all those who put their trust in us, "compassion" is only an intellectual exercise.…”

“…Benefits of Compassion: Compassion benefits not only the sufferer but also the caregiver, who in such moments is afforded a rare moment of communion or connection, and for a short while is set free from selfabsorption. The compassionate physician is released from the grinding striving for the primacy of his own existence and his own welfare, and is momentarily relieved from the burden of individuality (5).…”