The Doctor as an Emotional and Spiritual Caregiver

Abstract

This brief chapter focusses on the role of the physician as a provider of emotional and spiritual support at the deathbed. Nineteenth-century works on “euthanasia medica” considered this an important aspect of terminal care. This conviction heightened frictions between physicians and priests at the deathbed, however. Providing solace and spiritual support had long been considered the domain of the clergy. Now, some medical authors criticized the priests for their lack of humanity instead, claiming that the priests, in their zeal to save the patients’ souls, sometimes massively increased their suffering, by threatening the dying with damnation or constantly shouting into their ears, to keep them conscious and less prone to fall prey to the Devil’s temptations.