"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to 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 and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help."
I venture to ask, "What do these words even mean anymore?" This question is so pressing because when a person cannot afford health care in one of the most powerful countries in the world, these words seem to get lost in translation somehow. The percentage of Americans who do not currently have health care climbed to 49.9 million, an increase from 2009, according to the US Census Bureau's latest report.
With an unstable economy and job security being anything but secure with 26 states reporting an increase in jobless Americans and another 30 states seeing a decrease in payroll employees, ailing Americans are more inclined to forego treatment due to cost rather than to take a $20, 000 trip to the emergency room. The fact that people are find themselves avoiding medical care because they just can't afford seems to negate all that the Hippocratic Oath was created to uphold. There is no integrity in medicine these days--- it's all business. When the less affluent need care the primary concern is not how can we assist this patient, rather, it is who is your insurance carrier. In my honest opinion based upon research and my own life experiences, Uncle Sam wants money, not cures.
