A Nigerian priest, Father Philemon Ayibo has rounded up his studies in Poland by urging for a more robust romance between faith and reason insisting that doing so would lead to holistic healing of the human person including bodilly and spiritual upliftment.
He made the disclosure on 30 June, 2022 during the defense of his novel Doctoral Dissertation titled “The identity and structure of medicine in Edmund Daniel Pellegrino’s philosophy of medicine” at the Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Ethics, the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin.
Using an interdisciplinary approach, the Nigerian-born cleric revealed “that medicine is an object of philosophical investigation.”
Speaking further, he said, “The profession of medicine encounters many dilemmas with respect to value judgment especially when the physician must face the question of what to do or the best way to do it in the clinical encounter.”
According to him, “medicine is far more than just a body of scientific knowledge and a collection of well-practiced skills” as it is “An integral and comprehensive approach to competent medical practice requires the combination of medical knowledge and moral formation.”
He further stressed that “There is a growing demand for a philosophical analysis of medicine, in order to clarify the concept of medicine in our age, where healthcare has been commodified, commercialized, and politicized by social constructs.
“The field of medicine faces more professional ethical dilemmas than any other profession in the world. We are facing several kinds of vexing medical issues that previous generations never encountered.”
Touching on Bio-ethics, the Candidate asked whether “Biotechnological breakthroughs have brought great good to mankind but have also have created new moral and clinical medical issues, such as, whether should cloning of humans, or the manipulation of human genetic materials be allowed?”
He clarified that “Most medical and ethical issues that also make the headlines are typically abortion, euthanasia, suicide, surrogate parenthood, autonomy, paternalism, physician-patient relationships, consent, and other issues concerning privacy or confidentiality, and diagnosis-related issues.”
Pellegrino’s essentialist constructionist medical philosophy
The Ph.D candidate noted that from Pellegrino’s philosophical point of view, medicine can be understood first, from “the essentialist approach which defines health or the good of the patient as the intrinsic goal to which all medical activities are directed” and second, from “the social constructionist – which medicine becomes whatever social convention, politics, economics, or sheer pragmatics defines it to be.”
He underlined that “a holistic or integral definition of medicine must necessarily take into consideration its internal and external sources.”
Edmund Daniel Pellegrino (1920-2013), an outstanding physician, philosopher and ethicist was an American of Italian descent, said he.
The devout Catholic who attended Catholic schools was “a philosophizing physician, Pellegrino believed that medicine is a moral enterprise and “that if you took away medicine’s moral and ethical dimensions, then you would be left with only technique” Fr Ayibo disclosed.
The priest also stated that Pellegrino earlier specialised in cardio-renal physiology and electrolyte metabolism but later became an expert in medical ethics and moral philosophy.
He wowed the audience when he revealed that the medical-philosopher who was a distinguished professor of medicine and medical ethics as well as the Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University for more that 35 years, published more than 600 articles in medical science, philosophy, and ethics, co-authored 23 books and served as the 11th president of the Catholic University of America from 1978 to 1982.
Structure and methodology
The thesis investigated how Pellegrino’s theory of medicine is an adequate response to the problems of contemporary medicine.
The Philosopher used primary sources written by Pellegrino and his contemporaries in the field of the philosophy of medicine which include, The virtues in medical practice 1993; For the Patient’s Good:
The Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care 1995; The Christian Virtues in Medical Practice 1996; Helping and Healing 1997; Biotechnology and the Human Good 2007; The philosophy of medicine reborn: A Pellegrino reader 2008.
It employed a combination of textual analysis, synthetic, historical-philosophical, and expository-descriptive approaches as methodology.
In terms of strcuture, the five-chapter study presented a solid background to the philosophy of medicine with “arguments about the necessity of philosophical analysis in medical practice.”
In the second and third chapters, the candidate demonstrated how the phenomenology of the clinical encounter is “the mega and melting point of all medical activities and the final pathway through which all medical knowledge, public medical policies, and scientific researches ultimately come to affect the lives of the sick persons who seek healing from persons who profess to heal” as well as the theory of virtue with all it’s corresponding roles in medical practice.
The last two chapters were the application of certain philosophical and religious virtues in medical practice and the findings of the study which aspires “to situate the relevance of this research in the context of contemporary medical practice.”
Research findings
The scholar found that “Faith and reason are inseparable and they are indispensable for the holistic healing of the human person since integral healing involves both body and spirit.”
The study maintained that “Faith and reason are inseparable and indispensable for the holistic healing of the human person since integral healing involves both body and spirit.”
The research also discovered that “The good and the dignity of the human person is the highest good of medical activity and it should be the moral norm of medical ethics.”
The study which was supervised by Reverend Dr. Alfred Marek Wierzbicki and reviewed by Prof. Tadeusz Biesaga, Dr. Jarosław Sak and Andrej Kobyliński also found that, “philosophy is at the heart of medical practice and it is indispensable for a profound vision of the essence of medicine.
It disclosed that “the well-being of the human person belongs to the crucial end of medicine and it determines the essence of medicine” just as it pointed out that “health, which is an essential manifestation of the good of the human person, is not and can never be a commercial commodity.”
In part, one of the findings argued that “the good and the dignity of the human is the moral principle of medical ethics” emphasizing that “the clinical encounter gives physicians a sense of their professional identity and sets them apart by publicly declaring them as devoted to the healing of the sick.”
It maintained that “Virtues are indispensable and inevitable in medical practice and they are tenably necessary for solving the problems of modern medicine.”
Recommendations and conclusion
The priest of Kaduna Archdiocese explained that “Pellegrino’s integral anthropology provides a solid foundation for further debates on the nature and the essence of medicine.
“The personalistic nature of Pellegrino’s medical ethics conforms to the ethical personalism of the Lublin School of Ethics. The principal representative, and the founder of Lublin’s ethical personalism, Karol Wojtyla, held so tenaciously that the dignity of the human person is the fundamental principle of ethics.”
The Formator at Good Shepherd Seminary Kaduna, North-West Nigeria insisted that the relevance of his project was not in doubt as “the work offers different levels, both theoretical and practical purposes for health professionals in various capacities since they cannot practice medicine effectively without falling back to philosophy as a crucial subject.”
He surmised that “The study is essential for both bioethicists, philosophers, and public health policy-making organizations and agencies in their respective domains.
He siezed the opportunity to thank his home-bishop, Most Reverend Matthew Ndangoso, his supervisor, reviewers of the work, fellow students as well as family and friends ho supported him throughout the studies.
Present at the defense where Father Ayibo was pronounced a Doctor of Philosophy were members of faculty, some students of the institution as well as over 10 participants from the United States of America and Nigeria who hooked up with the event on zoom.
