As Scott and I found when he began medical school, many schools no long choose to ask their students upon entering med school to take the Hippocratic oath—many choose to use a modified version, ask them to make up their own, or don’t have one at all. And how could they? Should they make them take it in its original form, they would certainly be allowing these students, and in some cases encouraging them, to break their word. Of course, I refer specifically to the clause regarding abortion, which is explicitly rejected by the oath, but further I speak of the overall message—that medicine should not be patient directed, but physician directed. It is too common in medicine (particularly in the west) that remedies are procured without cause or suggestion from the physician. It is the reason why so many people are able to abuse prescription drugs. Instead of treating the ailment, doctors have taken a philosophy of giving the patient what they ask for, regardless of the doctor’s professional opinion.
When this happens, it no longer is about the good of the patient, but rather making them “happy” and giving them what they want. In so many ways, this is a symptom of a culture that is so relative to the point that everything is subjective—even health and medicine. The mindset of relativity has pervaded the culture so far that medicine now sees it as an ethical stance that giving the patient what they want because they want it (no matter the adverse effects) is completely permissible and, in fact, practiced by many. It is for this reason that birth control is doled out with ease, even though it can pose serious health risks such as blood clots, stroke, and increased infertility later in life.
The Hippocratic Oath is not a Christian moral invention—it was written and taken before the time of Christ. Some things are naturally known, the rely not a a moral code, but on the laws of nature, the nature of human beings. Greek philosophers, who were pagans and didn’t even have an opportunity of knowing Christ or what would become Christian moral teaching, were able to reason that (a) there is an objective standard by which one can make moral decisions and (b) it is against this objective standard to give abortions and to procure drugs based on what is subjectively wanted by an individual. Why, with all of our advances and talk of doing what is best for the common good, do we reject what is most basic?
I’ve included a copy of the Hippocratic Oath, for your perusal—what else jumps out at you? (bolding is my own—drawing attention to the part that struck me the most about it):
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art—if they desire to learn it—without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
Translation from the Greek by Ludwig Edelstein. From The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation, by Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943.
