Is Hippocratic oath a sin?

[GaeDi]

I am a medical resident and I need to take the Hippocratic oath (also by signing) in order to receive my license. Is this wrong?

 

[A_Thinker]

I am a medical resident and I need to take the Hippocratic oath (also by signing) in order to receive my license. Is this wrong?

Educate us.

Why would such a thing be wrong ?

 

[-57]

I am a medical resident and I need to take the Hippocratic oath (also by signing) in order to receive my license. Is this wrong?

Yes, educate us. Where is the issue?

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 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.

 

[hedrick]

Different schools have different forms of the oath. We’d need to see the OPs.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I am a medical resident and I need to take the Hippocratic oath (also by signing) in order to receive my license. Is this wrong?

If you read the Hippocratic oath you will see that there is a prayer to a pagan god in it.

The classic version says:
I swear by Apollo, the Physician and Aesculepius and Hygeia and Panacea 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.

But the modern version leaves that out. If you take the modern version, then you don't have to worry about swearing by those pagan gods.

It is up to your conscience whether you take it or not. But God knows your heart, and He knows that it is a requirement to get your licence as a doctor. He also knows that you would not seriously pray to a pagan god, so if it was me, I would tell the Lord that I am having to take the oath, but I am just going to give lip service to that part of the oath that refers to the pagan God, but in my heart I am directing my prayer to the Living God of the Bible.

It is like Namaan asking Elisha for understanding that when he had to support to king when he knelt down to worship the god Dagon, he had to kneel as well, but that was not to worship but to support his king as was his requirement. Elisha said that he would not be in strife with God when he had to do that.

So, I think the same principle applies. To get your licence to practice medicine you have to say the Hippocratic oath, but it is just a ritual, and that there are principles that you agree with, and as part of that you have to give lip service to the pagan god that Hippocrates worshiped when he first made his oath, but your heart, like Namaan's, wouldn't be in it.

There is nothing wrong with taking an oath like this. It is the same as signing a contract with conditions, or taking the oath of allegiance to your country, or agreeing to tell the truth in Court.

It is not the same as Jepthah making an oath that if he wins the battle, he will sacrifice first person he sees when he arrives home. Too bad it was his own daughter!

 

[hedrick]

Many medical schools use altered versions of the oath, so it doesn't necessarily involve any pagan gods. That's why I asked what text the OP is actually being asked to use. According to Wikipedia, "In a 1989 survey of 126 US medical schools, only three reported use of the original oath"

 

[klutedavid]

I am a medical resident and I need to take the Hippocratic oath (also by signing) in order to receive my license. Is this wrong?

Oaths also are taken in a court of law.

"I swear (or the person taking the oath may promise) by Almighty God (or the person may name a god recognized by his or her religion) that the evidence I shall give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

 

[klutedavid]

I am a medical resident and I need to take the Hippocratic oath (also by signing) in order to receive my license. Is this wrong?

Even in public office oaths are necessary.

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” (U.S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 3)