Going on with his speech, Benedict XVI mentioned the "insistence with which the patient’s independence is now emphasised" which he pointed out must be directed to promoting an approach to the patient that will rightly consider him not an opponent but a proactive, responsible collaborator in the therapeutic treatment". After stating that "there’s no denying that the patient’s self-determination needs to be respected, bearing in mind, however, that the individualistic extolling of independence always ends up leading to a non-realistic, certainly impoverished interpretation of human reality", he then added that "the professional responsibility of the doctor must made him offer a treatment that really aims at the true good of the patient, in the awareness that his specific expertise usually enables him to assess the situation better than the patient himself". According to Benedict XVI, "it is very important, instead, not to exclude the patient’s existential scenario, especially his family, from the therapeutic relation. That’s why the family’s sense of responsibility for their relative needs to be promoted: it is an important factor to prevent that further estrangement that the patient, almost inevitably, suffers if he is entrusted to a highly-technological medicine that lacks adequate human vibrancy".
