Should Love be Explicitly Stated as a Core Enabling Concept in the Medical Curriculum?

The concept of love, defined as a multidimensional ethical commitment to human dignity encompassing empathy, compassion, and respect, should be explicitly integrated into the medical curriculum. This commitment is considered the “secret of quality” (Donabedian) and a necessary counterbalance to the reductive, metrics-driven model of modern healthcare. Acknowledging the risk of love becoming a narcissistic illusion (Lacanian critique), its implementation requires strict professional boundaries, “Self-as-Instrument” training via reflective practice and humanistic assessment over measurable metrics.