Kairós. Un tempo nel mezzo. Percorso multidisciplinare di analisi dell’esperienza di assistenza ai pazienti oncologici terminali

The personalistic Christian conception allows a correct anthropological and ethical vision that bases the reflections of human sciences (sociology, psychology, pedagogy, communication sciences) that want to analyze the situations of the terminal cancer patient, his / her family members and those engaged in clinical, social, and voluntary care. According to this conception, the "person" is an inseparable unit of body, psyche and spirit, male and female, destined to a transcendental and ultraterranal dimension of being. A person with cancer, in this vision, can not be reduced to mere psychophysical agglomeration, an individual or a human being who has lost something essential because of a serious illness. The human person is more than his illness, his wealth of being far beyond his possible state of infirmity. It is never reducible to its illness: this is the main reason why the patient should be treated as a person until the time of death. On the basis of such beliefs, a rather delicate and demanding task is required of professional workers and volunteers who want to truly assist terminal cancer patients until death and their relatives also in post-mortem treatment, favoring proper grieving process. This, for them, can not be accomplished without constant humanistic training aimed at the acquisition of precise moral, affective and relational skills, and without a continuous comparison aimed at overcoming personal limits.