Mercy and compassion are two words synonymous to one another. They go together when applied to hospital or office medical settings. Mercy is a virtue that influences other’s spirit to have empathy to lessen one’s adversity. In connection, compassion is an emotion of profound sympathy and distress felt when others experience hardships. It is often escorted by the aspiration to lighten the agony. Mercy and compassion are the feelings which are felt by doctors to their patients who are enduring serious sickness and suffering. This feeling is rooted by love which is shared to sufferers hoping that something good will be made to lessen the pain due to the doctor’s role of curing the sickness.
When dealing with people who are in pain and people who are ill and suffering, mercy and compassion play important roles in providing charitable acts to help those who are inflicted by serious sickness. These human qualities let a person feel, understand and respond to the afflictions of others. They provide an open door to an individual to penetrate and preserve affairs of caring. The main role of these virtues is to bear and share with others’ pain. With that, the universal human response to the society of the sick and dying is cured with empathetic care.
Doctors and health care professionals are expected to show compassion and sympathy for their patients. They are the first person to bear with their suffering and illness; expected to firstly feel, understand and respond to their patients. They should provide tender loving care and manifest the virtue of mercy and compassion to alleviate others’ suffering.
In my opinion, setting aside mercy and compassion in favor of reasoning, reflection and a more factual approach to medical situations would never be an option, because these virtues came from the heart, which would take part in decision making while facing different medical situations. Reasons out of mercy and compassion, and using only the cognitive aspect of the doctors may sometimes lead to acts deterring holistic minds. Moral reasoning should always take part with the aid of these virtues. Since it has been explained above that it is rooted by love, what could there be wrong in a decision made from love? One may still provide a factual and honest approach to medical situations filled with the gifts of such qualities. Just be fair. Do not be biased with your emotions.