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B Piñera
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ABSTRACT: This was a lecture given by Monsignor Piñera, Honorary Member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine who is a Bishop of the Catholic Church and also an MD. The author addresses the problem of the dying patient in the different positions held by a churchman and by the physician. The religious minister, whether Jewish, Catholic or from any other Christian nomination, helps the dying patient to understand his her situation as an inevitable step towards Sheol (in the Old Testament) or Heaven (New Testament). The physician confronts the problem of a terminal disease or a fatal event. But in both positions, hope must be sustained to the very end and due respect to the patient's will as a human being has to be maintained, helping him her to die with dignity and the best comfort available. Unnecessary or unjustified measures to resuscitate or to prolong life are criticised.
Revista medica de Chile 07/1999; 127(6):743-6. · 0.33 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Drs. Alejandro Goic (internist), Ramón Florenzano (psychiatrist), Bernardino Piñera (physician and Catholic Bishop), Sergio Valdés (internist) and Rodolfo Armas (internist) participated in a round table about the care of the terminally ill, during a Postgraduate Course organized by the Chilean Society of Gastroenterology. After a general introduction, participants discussed the psychological aspects of terminally ill patients, about the sense of death from a Christian anthropological perspective, the terminally ill in intensive care units and finally about the education of medical students in this frequently neglected aspect of medical practice.
Revista medica de Chile 01/1998; 125(12):1517-25. · 0.33 Impact Factor
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B Piñera
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ABSTRACT: This is the speech delivered by Bernardino Piñera MD, a catholic bishop, at the time of his incorporation as an Honorary Member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine. Medicine, health, and life, suffering and death are endowed with marvelous elements of reenchantment; turn pain into well-being, anxiety into serenity, fear into confidence; give sense to life and death, live and make men feel their human dignity. Many a patient miss the times when the doctor was a friend who knew him, not through biochemical or imaging diagnosis but through intimate conversation; when he was familiar with his character, his family and environment; when he could die in peace at home, surrounded by his family and thinking of God according to his religious beliefs. A profound change in medical conscience is needed, a philosophical and cultural change, allowing "high touch" to dominate and use "high tech". Let us transform the words sick or patient into "sick man" or "suffering man". Let us think of death as a culminating moment of life on earth, not as a failure of Medicine, but as the joyful acceptance of human destiny.
Revista medica de Chile 05/1992; 120(4):445-9. · 0.33 Impact Factor
