Catholic healthcare workers and medical providers across the Archdiocese of Louisville are invited to join the new local chapter of the Catholic Medical Association.
The Catholic Medical Association’s mission is “forming and supporting current and future physicians to live and promote the principles of the Catholic Faith in the science and practice of medicine,” according to its website, cathmed.org.
Dr. Eliot Bassett, a Catholic physician in Louisville, is leading the launch. And he’s hoping that the local chapter is able to support not just physicians, but all healthcare professionals, he said.
“I really wanted to do something that was open to all healthcare providers,” he said in a recent phone interview. The association has helped “integrate my faith into what I do as a physician.”
The association’s offerings can help healthcare providers bring the faith into the workplace, said Bassett, who has been on a journey to integrate the two, rather than having “faith in one lane and working in one lane.”
“The more I am able to do that, it makes me feel whole,” he said.
“There are a lot of challenges right now for medical providers. There are trials all the time,” he said, noting, “physician-assisted suicide, honoring the dignity of life,” to name a few.
Catholics shouldn’t have to choose between being “excellent” Catholics or “excellent” providers, he said. “It’s not any kind of either-or. We are called to do excellence in both.”
The association helps providers navigate that, he said.
“They set the standard for a lot of medical ethics as medicine continues to develop,” said Bassett. It empowers and equips healthcare workers to “go forward in medicine as Catholics.”
Bassett’s involvement in the association and attendance at the association’s national conference has changed how he approaches his patients, he said.
He now aims to “see each patient as Christ,” he said. “That’s been really eye-opening.”
Like the national conference, the local chapter will host mini-retreats for medical providers, offering time for fellowship, prayer, speakers on healthcare-related subjects and Mass. The mini-retreats will offer “time to reflect and go a little deeper,” he said.
The chapter will host its first meeting on March 29 from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in O’Brien Hall at St. Louis Bertrand Church. To register or learn more, contact Bassett at eliotbassett@gmail.com.
