Pope Benedict on Thursday visited the Agostino Gemelli Teaching Hospital, located on Rome’s Monte Mario hill, to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the medical faculty.
The Gemelli serves as the official hospital for the Pope, and a suite of reserved rooms is always available for him.
It is the official teaching hospital of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, and also houses the university’s Bioethics Centre.
The Centre trains people in “clinical bioethics”, whose practitioners advise patients and doctors on what procedures can be followed in treating an illness.
Bioethicists are trained in a wide variety of ways, including watching medical procedures being performed, and speaking to patients facing often difficult decisions.
“There is a really wide range of personal contact,” said Joseph Meaney, a doctoral candidate in the Bioethics programme.
“You definitely meet with the patients. Sometimes the patients are either mentally incompetent or even unconscious. At that point, you meet with family members, or those who have medical guardianship over those patients. You meet with the doctors. It is very important actually for a good bioethicist to know some of the science - what the medical procedures are and what the implications are – but also to have a certain physical contact and counselling even with these persons who are grieving in a very serious situation.”
Meaney told Vatican Radio there is one department for which he has a special affection.
“The Gemelli has been pioneering a lot of work in treating the unborn child in the womb,” said Meaney, who is also Director of International Coordination at Human Life International.
“It’s wonderful to have this kind of view of the preborn child as a patient, as opposed to as a problem.”