The Southern Medical Journal (SMJ) is the official, peer-reviewed journal of the Southern Medical Association. It has a multidisciplinary and inter-professional focus that covers a broad range of topics relevant to physicians and other healthcare specialists.

SMJ // Article

Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project

The Tools of a Trade: To Serve, Not to Supplant

Authors: Conrad C. Daly, MTh

Abstract

Medicine is a unique profession: as the art of healing, it is charged with curing and caring for the patient as person; yet, as a progressively scientific and evidence-based discipline, it also benefits from the focused insights afforded by technology. It is at once art and science; both dimensions are essential to medicine’s health and wellbeing. However, in this age of ever-more-rapidly developing technical and scientific acumen, it increasingly has become the trend to overlook the underlying art for the “solutions” of science. Such a trend is more than just unfortunate: the science and technology that are employed by medicine serve as tools in the quest to care for the patient; as tools, therefore, they can serve but not supplant medicine’s fundamental aim, an aim that is central to its noble nature and identity. Moreover, in seeking this aim, medicine becomes good. It is not a morally neutral activity.1 The powers which scientific advancement present to medicine are both remarkable and wonderful, and these tools should be taken up by healthcare professionals. That much said, however, great care and attention should be given to the development of these tools, as well as the reason for their development.2,3 As science continues to reveal wonder after wonder, it needs to be asked whether and where a line should be drawn, and, if so, according to what standard(s).4

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