The Hippocratic Oath-Discussion


Up until the late 1970’s, just 25 years ago, physicians graduating from medical school almost universally took an oath (orkos-Greek meaning ‘constraint’), a solemn pledge, to abide by certain moral principles and avoid immoral behaviors. Most forbade performing abortions, killing patients, immoral sexual behavior with those in your charge, and of the divulging of privately given information; under penalty of losing ones honor and ‘enjoyment of life’. Sadly, and perhaps ominously for patients, in the year 2000 out of 141 allopathic and osteopathic school oaths only 1 explicitly prohibited abortion, 4 urged physicians to avoid sexual relationships with patients, and only 23 explicitly prohibited physician-assisted suicide (19 were osteopathic schools).[rs14]

Prior to about 400 B.C. the lines between physician, witch doctor, and magician were blurred. The line between physician and executioner was also not clearly drawn.[rs5] The Greek physician Hippocrates drew a clear line between killing and curing by the taking of an oath of conduct, the Hippocratic oath. This solemn agreement, or covenant, bound a person’s word by testifying before a higher being. In the Greeks’ case the oath was taken before the divinities (their Gods) of health as witnesses. It imposed a “rigorous duty”, an “obligation to remain chaste in regard to women”, and a “prohibition of death-dealing medicines and abortion.”[rs12,p.17] Christians re-directed the oath to the ‘one true God’.[rs12, p.17] . From just before the 10th century this oath has remained mostly intact and in effect (for over a thousand years); until 25 years ago when it began to be reworded to expunge any moral constraints!

The Hippocratic Oath has now been replaced by other oaths which often have a bland, generalized air of ‘best wishes’ about them.[rs8] [rs9] [rs11] [rs13] The Medical Professionalism Project had a series of 10 “commitments” (not commandments) which were preoccupied with economics and bureaucracy, not absolute moral truths-abiding by moral truths point us in and hold us to a moral direction.[rs13] The new “modern version of the Hippocratic Oath” written by Lewis Lasagna has such wording as “I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of over-treatment and therapeutic nihilism”, “I will remember that I am a member of society”, and I will remember I have “special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.”(huh?!) But this modern oath gets more ominous when it states “If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness…I must not play God.” So, how does one “take a life”, including those in abortions, and not “play God”?

Family Practice News 4/1/05 reported on a survey showing that 57% of physicians now believe it is ethical to assist a patient in committing suicide. 41% would endorse it under a wide variety of circumstances![eu1] There are still, thankfully, a number of physicians opposed to terminating human life from conception onward. Each year more that a thousand graduating medical students find it important to take a separate Christian Physicians’ Oath before God that says they vow to “care for all my patients, rejecting those interventions which either intentionally destroy or actively end the lives of the unborn, the infirm and the terminally ill.”[rs14] You may want to ask your physician which oath he/she took and swears by before you find yourself in a tenuous medical condition!

Classic Version of the Hippocratic Oath (Link) -taken now in only 1 medical school
The Declaration of Geneva (Link) -originated from the Geneva Convention after World War II in the light of the Nazi atrocities-I took this one in 1976 (and still believe and abide by it)
Modern Version of the Hippocratic Oath (Link) -this one speaks (or doesn’t) for itself!

Note: See Reference Pages (Oath-Hippocratic-Discussion) on this subject to view specific references cited above.

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