Palliative Medicine: A Holistic Framework for Compassionate Care

It was a sunny Monday morning and I just started medical school. Prof. Dr. med. Dr. med. h.c. Johannes W. Rohen, a German anatomist and former chair of the Department for Anatomy at the Friedrich–Alexander University Erlangen–Nürnberg, gave his famous lecture about how to become a doctor. Prof. Rohen, already 87 years of age, a tall man with an inspiring aura, told our class that medical school predominantly provides just one thing and one thing only: the acquisition of knowledge. I felt the initial confusion in the audience, although he elaborated on the next, more important steps to becoming a doctor: gaining experience, skills and knowledge, compassion, intuition, life experience, and finally love. The quote that struck me the most and has accompanied me ever since was the following: “I have seen many doctors in my career…also good ones!