The Trilogy of Health Care: Caring and Healing of the Clinician

Today, more than we are aware of in the history of health services in the United States, is the critical need to reclaim and apply the core values and principles that inspired physicians and nurses to respond to their original call become consolers and healers of the sick and those in distress, and to refocus our attention on the person of the healer. In clinical practice today, we are endowed with enormously effective interventions that were unimaginable only a few decades earlier. In light of the fund of knowledge, clinical competencies, and technological advancements that we bring to bear in our experience in caring for our patients, the learning curve is never flat, never complete, and never static. Newer, safer, and more effective interventions in the cure of illnesses, management to relieve stress, moderate fear of surgery, and to promote healing that often lead to early discharge and return to normal activities of daily living are readily available in clinical practice. Yet, there are looming threats that compromise the person of clinician, for example, dehumanization, consumerism, commodification, and fungeability of the human person. This article will describe the Trilogy of Health Care: Caring and Healing of the Clinician and its application to the care and healing of physicians and nurses as they accompany one another in caring for a world in need of healing and hope.