Priv.-Doz. Dr. med. Thomas Bohrer reflects on palliative medicine as both a specialized medical discipline and a concept of humanity. Modern medicine has developed through scientific discoveries and increasing specialization, but this can also fragment the view of the human being.
Medical education often begins with anatomy and the dissection of the body. This trains students to understand the human being through organs and functions, while concepts such as spirit, psyche and soul remain much less central. Palliative medicine therefore challenges medicine to look beyond the body as a mechanical system.
Bohrer argues that palliative medicine realizes a fundamental human concern of medicine: trust, empathy, appreciation, respect for autonomy and an individualized view of the patient. Philosophy and medicine are both insufficient when isolated from each other; together they help ask what is truly human in palliative care.
The article emphasizes the uniqueness of every person and the complexity of each life and death. The human being is not a closed system or a machine. Good palliative care cannot be reduced to molecular mechanisms, genes or standard averages. It requires communication, relationship, dignity and the search for humanity in each encounter.
