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Modern Hippocratic Oath Analysis

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Throughout the history of medicine, physicians have been required to maintain an extraordinary level of moral sensitivity and duty. As a result, the conduct of those trusted with these responsibilities has been embedded in oaths. These evolving principles stand as a means to strengthen a doctor’s resolve to behave with integrity in their practice. Customs, social beliefs, and politics all just a few things that have the ability to sway a physician’s moral norms. For that reason, medicine requires formalized guidance to offer some resistance to fluctuating social opinion as a reminder to balance the needs of their patients with that of the physician. For this paper, I will be analyzing the oath (written above) in comparison to the original …show more content…

The modern Hippocratic Oath has language that is too vague and does not meet the challenge of the complex modern healthcare landscape. With the unique challenges facing 21st century medicine through government regulation, conflict of interest, and the access to medical knowledge, physicians are facing new challenges that this forty-year-old oath does not adequately address. Finally, the multitude of aforementioned social roles that physicians now fill demands guidelines in medical ethics has more precision than the Modern Oath allows (Parnigoni, 2013). Thus, the medical field requires an oath that views health, rights, and ethics in a broader 21st century …show more content…

In the classical Hippocratic Oath, the physician swears to Greek Gods and Goddesses of healing. In comparison to the Modern Oath and the one above, there are no promises to a higher being. Rather, the oath is written so that moral responsibility is embedded in judgment, not religion. By stating ‘to the best of my ability and judgment’, the accountability for one’s actions are then transferred from an intangible, supernatural level to a personal one. This change also occurred because, much like the diverse body of patients physicians treat, the medical profession is comprised of divergent values and beliefs. Swearing to a god that a student has no sense of duty towards nullifies the sense of duty and principle to this fundamental part of the

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