Rome Seminar 2009: Photo Journal

Despite major fog delays at the San Diego airport, missed flight connections, lost luggage and other travel inconveniences, nine USD faculty made it to Rome, Italy by January 2 to begin the first travel seminar sponsored by the Center for Catholic Thought and Culture. Six faculty from the Hahn School of Nursing, Sally Hardin, Kathy James, Diane Fatica, Cynthia Connelly, Mary-Rose Mueller, and Susan Instone, along with Tammy Dwyer, Sandra Sgoutas-Emch, and Debbie Tahmassebi from the College of Arts and Sciences, participated in a six-day seminar focused on Catholic Health Care and Health Care Ethics. Each day, faculty participated in two, sometimes three, two-hour seminar sessions led by Brian Johnstone, Ph.D., an internationally recognized Roman Catholic scholar specializing in bio-ethics. In these sessions, faculty considered and debated the Church’s position on some of the most controverted topics in bio-ethics today, ranging from abortion to in-vitro and other reproductive technologies, to the human genome project and gene therapy, to end-of-life decisions and questions related to justice in health care. While participants did not always agree with the Church’s teachings on every subject examined, they came away from the seminar with a more precise understanding of the Church’s positions on these subjects and a broadened understanding of their theological, philosophical and historical foundations.

Seminar sessions were enhanced by various site visits which included places of historical significance as well as contemporary health care facilities where seminar participants were able to dialogue with professional peers. On their first site visit, faculty crossed the footbridge to Tiber Island, a narrow strip of land in the middle of the Tiber River. This island has been associated with medicine and healing since at least the third century B.C., when the Romans erected a temple to Aesculapius, Greek god of healing. Though the Temple is no longer visible, the Island remains associated with medicine and healing and has housed a Catholic health care center since 1584 A.D. The original hospice was opened by the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God, (aka "Fatebenefratelli" or "brothers of good works") a religious order of men founded in 16th century Spain to care for the sick. This religious order continues to operate the modern hospital and pharmacy built around the site of the original hospice. Wall and ceiling frescoes in the current structures depict the hospice’s modest but innovative beginnings. It was here that patients were first segregated according to illness and the practice of keeping individual medical charts had its beginning.Hospital personnel were on hand to guide the faculty visit to Fatebenefratelli hospital and share information about contemporary Catholic health care service on Tiber Island.

Faculty were especially fascinated by their visit to the Abbey of Sant’ Eutizio in Preci, a town of 400 located in the Appenine foothills of Umbria. In the fifth century AD., two hermits, fleeing persecution in the eastern empire, settled in the caves of Preci. The two possessed surgical skills and were especially adept at cataract surgery. Within a short time, they were joined by others and their monastery became a prominent center for gastro-intestinal and eye surgery. The monks also copied and preserved ancient medical texts from the Greco-Roman period as well as preserving information about homeopathic medicine and cures. Unfortunately, in the high middle ages, Church authorities issued a succession of regulations forbidding ecclesiastics to practice medicine or perform surgery. To avoid the loss of this incredible medical and surgical patrimony, the monks taught their surgical skills and transmitted their medical knowledge to the local townspeople and farmers, thus founding the famed Surgical School of Preci. The mayor of Preci, Alfredo Virgilio, guided the faculty’s tour of the monastery’s surgical museum, where surgical instruments and medical texts used by the monks, and later, lay surgeons, of Preci are on display.

Whether in seminar sessions, at site visits, or around the table at meals, seminar participants carried on a continuous inter-disciplinary dialogue, discussing and debating the Church’s positions, marveling at its contribution to health care and allowing its voice to be heard on controverted bio-ethical matters. Being elsewhere for an extended period of time created the opportunity for faculty of diverse disciplines, some of whom had never met on campus, to share ideas and create both professional and personal bonds that would not have been established otherwise.

Participants in the Rome seminar will be sharing their insights at open forums in March to which the entire campus community is invited. For details on forum dates, times and location, please click here.