doctor's life support

19th June: Beatitudes (6) -- The Merciful.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Matthew 5:7

Ruthlessness and mercy are opposites.

Because we deal with people when they are at their weakest, we doctors can be either ruthless or merciful in our attitudes or management plans. Often we don't recognise the motives hidden within ourselves or built into our 'system of health care delivery', driving us along paths which are ruthless rather than merciful. Our patients are too weak, too dependent to protest at the useless investigations or the doubtful therapy.

The Hebrew chesedh translated merciful means 'the ability to get right inside the other person's skin until we can see things with his eyes, think things with his mind, and feel things with his feelings' (Barclay). It is far more potent than our usual interpretation of the word 'mercy'. Chesedh is a virtue indispensable to the best doctoring. The promise is that those who develop this virtue will receive it in return. If chesedh means an attitude rather than an isolated act, experience vindicates this promise. It is an attitude that can be spread by example: it catches on.

Lord, grant me the love and wisdom that will
make me merciful in all that I do and say.

Further reading: Lk 6:32-38.

DA