Mission from the Eyes of a Patient

I grew up around health care. My father was a primary care doctor, which meant talk of childbirth and minor surgeries was the stuff of the dinner table. We would swing by his office after school when I was little. Family vacations and holiday plans depended on the call schedule or who was in labor. We knew if someone was getting an epidural, he might not be home for dinner because labor might last longer. And I knew if he was on call, we might have to brace ourselves at dinner to hear one side of an unpleasant conversation about bowels.

I worked for him and his partners during high school and college, and I worked every job in that office that did not require a medical degree: medical records, reception, coding, and billing. To say I was comfortable in a doctor’s office is an understatement.

Yet still, as a patient, I fear going to the doctor. I am sure I can attribute it to the feelings of uncertainty, worry, and lack of control that one experiences sitting in those little rooms. Thankfully, I have had great doctors and nurses over the years. But my fear is not unusual. So much of medicine seems frightening or foreign to patients. There is the physical pain of disease and the emotional suffering of the unknown. There is the psychological weight of important decisions, compounded with worry and exacerbated by suffering.

For this reason, medical practitioners have the vital mission of not just leading but accompanying patients through some of the most important moments of their lives.

Accompaniment requires speaking in a language the patient understands, making sure that confusing test and diagnoses are understood by the patient and their loved ones. We know this can be uncomfortable and time-consuming. We know that we can be difficult, hostile, and stubborn. But so much comes from fear and confusion.

You are called to accompany us by treating patients as people, not numbers, problems, or worse, experiments. The system today does not promote this. We know your days are full and often dictated by insurance companies. We know that often our problems are probably not novel but are familiar to you and seem identical to the patient you just saw. But they are new to us.

In his book on John Paul II, Jason Evert relates a conversation the Holy Father had with his doctors prior to an operation. During the “impromptu half-hour speech,” John Paul II reminded them that rather than an object of treatment, the patient must be seen as a subject of his or her illness (Evert, 146). For anyone familiar with the philosophy of John Paul II or his teaching on Theology of the Body, this homily would be no surprise. The human person is a unified whole and must never be treated as an object. In the midst of tests and diagnoses, treatments and surgeries, all in pursuit of the good—healing and alleviating suffering—it is easy for the medical practitioner to lose sight of the patient as a subject rather than an object.

You share in the mission of Christ the Physician. Christ did not approach the people he healed as blind eyes, leprous limbs, or possessed souls. He approached them as people.

Christ accompanied the suffering people he encountered. He took the time to touch and speak to them. He could have simply raised his hand over Capernaum and instantly healed every malady present in the town. But he chose to encounter and accompany.

Mysteriously, Christ did not heal everyone. In addition, those he did heal still grew sick again and died. Even Lazarus was only raised from the dead for a time. Christ had the power to banish suffering and death from this earth forever. But He chose instead to transform suffering, a natural evil, to be used for good.

This perhaps is the greatest and hardest lesson of your mission to accompany. You will not be able to heal everyone. Some of us will love and serve God better in our suffering and pain. It is a great mystery, and one you face daily. You must deliver difficult news to patients and their families, watch while people suffer, and perhaps face the feelings of personal inadequacy or failure. This too is part of accompaniment. Some questions do not have answers in this life.

Ultimately, it may be your mission to help us suffer and die. This seems contradictory to your role as a medical practitioner, as one who is to do no harm or injustice. But it is not harmful to help us face and embrace our own mortality, given that it comes to us as God wills. We need more medical practitioners who are willing to face this mystery with their patients, recognizing that just because something can be done does not mean it should be done, and that death and suffering are not ultimately our greatest enemies.

This is a lesson given to us throughout the pandemic of COVID-19, whether we learned it or not. We will not be able to avoid suffering and death. No one has been able to do it thus far (except maybe a few notable exceptions, but I do not see a fiery chariot in my future). Help us to cure what can be cured, heal what can be healed, and mitigate the pain that can be mitigated. But help us prepare for suffering and death, and help us and our loved ones with the unknown and the unexpected.

As a patient who struggles with the common fear of doctors, operating rooms, tests, and diagnoses, I am grateful for the men and women who have given their lives to accompany patients during life-changing moments. From the doctor who sits and listens to the mother who has just received difficult results of pre-natal testing to the nurse who explains a diagnosis to a son or daughter, we need you. We need your compassionate explanations, your patient ear, and your expertise and knowledge that help us make the proper and ethical decisions. We need you to accompany us from birth to death, to help us grow stronger and healthier, but also to face our own mortality as God wills.

Joan Watson is a Catholic speaker and writer who loves to make Scripture, theology, liturgy, and history accessible and applicable. With degrees from Christendom College and Franciscan University of Steubenville, she has worked for the Church and various religious apostolates for almost 15 years. Propelled by Luke 12:48, she is passionate about helping others encounter Christ and enter into friendship with Him through the daily circumstances of life. Her work can be found at www.joanmwatson.com.

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Joan Watson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2428-5699