Care-Giving and the Moral Impoverishment of Medicine
Care-giving is a foundational component of moral experience – an act of acknowledgement, empathy, and responsibility. But, aside from skilled nursing, rehabilitation efforts by occupational and physical therapists, and the practical assistance of social workers and home health aides, care-giving has little to do with the contemporary practice of medicine.
https://prosyn.org/EGD5mt2
CAMBRIDGE – Care-giving is understood by economists as a “burden,” by clinical psychologists as a “coping process,” by health-services researchers in terms of health-care costs, and by physicians as a matter of clinical competency. But, for many people, care-giving is a foundational component of moral experience. It is a practice of acknowledgement, empathic imagination, witnessing, responsibility, solidarity, and the most concrete forms of assistance. It is this moral aspect that makes care-givers, and at times even care-receivers, feel more “present” – and thus more fully human.