A spiritual perspective on healthcare today

For the second year in a row, Fr Paddy Carberry SJ, Director of Manresa, delivered a lecture on the relationship between spirituality and medical practice to a large group of medical students in UCD. The lecture was part of a programme called Professional Clinical Practice, which introduces students to a range of issues relating to medical practice, including ethics, palliative care and prefessional conduct. In his hour-long lecture, Paddy outlined a number of life-situations and then drew out the implications, as he saw them, for those engaged in the medical profession. In concluding, he challenged the students to pay attention to their own spiritual needs and search for meaning. “Unless you’re searching yourself, you’ll never understand or be sensitive to others in their search,” he said. “In this case, care of self means care of others.”