Who is hippocratic oath

Preparing for the holidays? Soon after his shootout with police in , one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers was taken to an area hospital with serious injuries. I knew she was referring to the Hippocratic Oath. But I also knew she was wrong. In fact, the modern-day Hippocratic Oath covers only a few issues relevant to the ethical practice of medicine. It does cover some important stuff. Some of that stuff is controversial, and has been liberally revised.

But plenty is simply left out from the original. The Hippocratic Oath is named after the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates. He is widely considered to be its author, although its true origins are uncertain; it may have been written by one of his students or by more than one person. It represents a time-honored guideline for physicians and other healthcare professionals as they begin or end their training. By swearing to follow the principles spelled out in the oath, healthcare professionals promise to behave honestly and ethically.

More modern revisions have avoided any mention of abortion and, as in a popular revision by Dr. Louis Lasagna, a physician at Johns Hopkins University , treated euthanasia with more nuance:. I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion. I will not use the knife, even upon those suffering from stones, but I will leave this to those who are trained in this craft.

Into whatever homes I go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, avoiding any voluntary act of impropriety or corruption, including the seduction of women or men, whether they are free men or slaves. Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private.

Protecting patient privacy, swearing to keep secret anything one may see or hear in the course of treatment, was a key component of the original oath. Even in a modern digital world, where it's easy to access and share information, privacy protection remains central to the oath and also guides medical policies. As values and practices continue to shift, the legacy of the original Hippocratic Oath will surely live on.

Prospective Students. Toggle navigation. Indeed, oath-taking in recent decades has risen to near uniformity, with just 24 percent of U. Yet paradoxically, even as the modern oath's use has burgeoned, its content has tacked away from the classical oath's basic tenets.

The original calls for free tuition for medical students and for doctors never to "use the knife" that is, conduct surgical procedures —both obviously out of step with modern-day practice. Perhaps most telling, while the classical oath calls for "the opposite" of pleasure and fame for those who transgress the oath, fewer than half of oaths taken today insist the taker be held accountable for keeping the pledge.

Indeed, a growing number of physicians have come to feel that the Hippocratic Oath is inadequate to address the realities of a medical world that has witnessed huge scientific, economic, political, and social changes, a world of legalized abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and pestilences unheard of in Hippocrates' time.

Some doctors have begun asking pointed questions regarding the oath's relevance: In an environment of increasing medical specialization, should physicians of such different stripes swear to a single oath? With governments and health-care organizations demanding patient information as never before, how can a doctor maintain a patient's privacy? Are physicians morally obligated to treat patients with such lethal new diseases as AIDS or the Ebola virus? Other physicians are taking broader aim.

Some claim that the principles enshrined in the oath never constituted a shared core of moral values, that the oath's pagan origins and moral cast make it antithetical to beliefs held by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Others note that the classical Oath makes no mention of such contemporary issues as the ethics of experimentation, team care, or a doctor's societal or legal responsibilities.

Most modern oaths, in fact, are penalty-free, with no threat to potential transgressors of loss of practice or even of face. With all this in mind, some doctors see oath-taking as little more than a pro-forma ritual with little value beyond that of upholding tradition.