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We need to learn from the patient, we need to listen to them, because from the classroom - as Charles G. Vella calls it - of the bedside, we glean an ethical lesson of inestimable value.The patient can help us become more human, and see the truth of our humanity. The patient may render us more humane while we accompany and care for him, always keeping in mind that despite his weakness and helplessness he remains, nevertheless, a person. And following this path, which Charles G. Vella can speak of with authority by the fact of his internationally recognised expertise and long experience with the sick, we discover that the simple communicative acts of listening, caressing, smiling, stopping by, Staying close to and giving time to the sick, may, in time, become therapeutic for ourselves. - Enzo Bianchi