Doctor

Photo of Marty Barrack

Catholic doctors today are urgently needed to protect the culture of life.

It is an astonishing fact that today, doctors do not see their work as protecting human life. Most doctors today prescribe contraceptives, which close sexual relations to the transmission of life; God alone knows how many human lives have been snuffed out before they even had an opportunity to be created. Most doctors today refer requesting patients to abortion providers, who snuff out human lives after they are created. Most doctors today, faced with a patient whom they judge will have an unacceptably low quality of life, will kill the patient by euthanasia, often by withholding food and hydration.

It is a fact that today, when an aging or seriously disabled patient is admitted into a hospital, if at all possible his faithful family members need to be there around the clock, watching what is going on and asking questions if the patient does not seem to be responding well. Many health care professionals do this routinely.

It has reached the point where most graduating medical students today no longer take the Hippocratic Oath, which physicians have taken for 2,400 years. A 1997 study, “The Use of the Hippocratic Oath: A Review of 20th Century Practice and a Content Analysis of Oaths Administered in Medical Schools in the U.S. and Canada in 1993.” by Robert D. Orr, M.D. and Norman Pang, M.D., a review of 157 medical schools in the United States and Canada. Of these, Drs. Orr and Pang reported that while all the schools administered some sort of oath, only one now administers the original Hippocratic Oath. While all the oaths pledge some commitment to patients, only 43 percent vowed to be accountable for their actions. Only 14 percent included a prohibition against euthanasia. Only 11 percent invoke a deity. Only 8 percent prohibit abortion, and only 3 percent prohibit sexual contact with patients. There is a 1995 Restatement of The Oath of Hippocrates that reflects Catholic teaching.

A popular adage among physicians today is “treat ’em and street ’em.” Their practice managers push them to see large numbers of patients per day, which means the doctor rushes in, looks at the medical history, asks a few questions, makes a quick diagnosis, and he’s out of there. A faithful Catholic physician will care more about his patients than about his own convenience or income.

A deeply faithful Catholic doctor will protect the patient’s life as best he can, consistent with Church teaching. He will use all ordinary means to keep the patient alive, such as food and hydration, and ask the patient, or the patient’s representative, whether extraordinary means are to be used. He will provide relief from pain as best he can.

If the patient is a Catholic, the faithful Catholic physician will call a priest when he believes there is serious risk of death and keep the patient alive as best he can until the priest can administer the last sacraments of Confession, Anointing of the Sick and Dying, and Viaticum. He is concerned for the patient’s earthly life, and also his eternal life.

Catholic physicians can be particularly helpful on hospital bioethics committees, where they can explain why human life is sacred from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death, and promote specific policies and practices to protect the lives of hospital patients.

Faithful Catholic nurses are also needed, but Catholic doctors are all-important because doctors give instructions. Nurses do what they are told. If the doctor gives instructions that will protect the patient’s life, the nurse will generally go along. If the doctor gives instructions that will foreseeably kill the patient, the nurse can resist only at risk of her job.