Wesley J. Smith: Even Many Doctors Want to Force Colleagues to Violate Hippocratic Oath

Secondhand Smoke ^ | 1/23/09 | Wesley J. Smith

[phatus maximus]

Agreed...

[bboop]

I was under the impression that physicians no longer took the Hippocratic Oath. After all, they would have to swear to not do abortions. I bet they stopped doing it in the 1960s. (Can anyone confirm?)

[wagglebee]

I was under the impression that physicians no longer took the Hippocratic Oath. After all, they would have to swear to not do abortions. I bet they stopped doing it in the 1960s. (Can anyone confirm?)

I thought that the Hippocratic Oath was "modernized" in the 1960s to allow physicians to embrace the culture of death. I was under the impression that nearly all physicians still took the oath in some form.

Hopefully some of the others I've pinged can clarify this.

[HangnJudge]

I thought that the Hippocratic Oath was "modernized" in the 1960's

Do not know about other schools, and "Modern" times, but
I'm old enough to have actually taken this oath

[wagglebee]

I know that my father-in-law took the same oath that you did, but that was back in the mid-60s, I thought they had changed the oath since then (I know the original is adamantly anti-abortion and also contains a phrase that could be construed as prohibiting surgery).

[HangnJudge]

...and also contains a phrase that could be construed as prohibiting surgery

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

The specialists, in today's vernacular, are called Surgeons

[wagglebee]

I agree with you; however, I have heard some people incorrectly conclude that this prohibited surgery.

[bboop]

That might be what I had heard/ it’s modified. We’ll see if there are any Docs out there.

[bboop]

Recent Changes May Render Hippocratic Oath Harmful to Patients, Critic Warns

By Mary Rettig
February 13, 2006

(AgapePress) - Wesley Smith, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, says an oath taken by new doctors for centuries is being watered down to allow for more open interpretation. The Hippocratic Oath has been modernized and modified many times since the original was written centuries before Christ’s birth; however, Smith asserts, recent changes have crossed the line.

According to Smith, some of the mandatory proscriptions in the physician’s oath that require doctors to refrain from doing bad things to patients have been removed. “For example,” he notes, “one of the important protections in the Hippocratic Oath is that doctors are not to have sexual relations with their own patients because, obviously, of the potential for exploitation.”

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/2/132006d.asp

More at link, including original and new versions.

[hocndoc]

My blog, LifeEthics.org, at http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/ has covered the controversy for a couple of years. We must never forget that the fight is over end of life care - or any critical care - and not just abortion. It is about *conscience.*
http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/labels/conscience.html

Here’s a pretty good article from 2002, on how the “new oaths” pretty much allow anything.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,46848,00.html

[wagglebee]

Thanks.