Understanding the Patient: An Ethical Approach to Medical Care

Becoming ill has the power to plunge people into an existential crisis. Modern medicine reacts to this by applying methods of natural science and by using state-of-the-art technology, but it often leaves the person, who is suffering this crisis, alone. Giovanni Maio draws attention to the one-sidedness of medical treatment which is oriented towards natural science and develops an ethical approach to medicine based on the power of empathy and care. He provides examples of this that are taken from medical practice. In a "condensed phenomenology of illness" he illustrates how, in the case of chronic pain, cancer, dementia or in the final stages of a terminally ill patient's life, the curative power of understanding can, through empathy in medical care, be brought to bear on the field of medicine.