T implement bedside rationing as described in Peter Ubel’s Pricing Life: Why It’s Time for Health Care Rationing would most certainly set medical ethics back 2500 years by ignoring the issue of patient trust, which gave rise to the traditional Hippocratic oath. The fundamental unit of health care is the physician–patient relationship. For physicians to knowingly withhold beneficial services fro...

IN addressing this meeting of the staff, students and friends of this great institution, I am deeply conscious of the many orators who have occupied this rostrum, and of my own inadequacy to emulate their efforts. But I fully realise that there are three duties incumbent on me today. Firstly, to offer a welcome to those students who have joined our hospital since the last opening day; secondly,...

confessed inadequacy of Hippocratic priorities when confronted with the probings of the true philosopher. Yet even in apparent defeat, Hippocrates triumphs, for he has learned from Democritus and, so it is implied, incorporated what he has learned into his medicine. Christianity was, however, different from Greek philosophy. True, in its theology and, largely, in its ethics, Hippocratic medicin...

The first code of professional ethics must: (1) be a code of ethics; (2) apply to members of a profession; (3) apply to all members of that profession; and (4) apply only to members of that profession. The value of these criteria depends on how we define "code", "ethics", and "profession", terms the literature on professions has defined in many ways. This paper applies one set of definitions of...

The concept of medical error and iatrogenic injury or adverse events in the healthcare sectors are not a new phenomenon and are increasingly becoming a cause for concern. It has been recognized for thousands of years that attempts to improve health and reduce suffering could themselves be associated with harmful effects to the patients. It constitutes the basis of the Hippocratic Oath “primum n...

The rumor is abroad that good teachers are born not made. While the phenomenon of congenital tagging of a teacher may occasionally occur, an analysis of the evidence suggests strongly that the same factors which make a good banker, a good tailor, a good artist, a good bookmaker, operate in the world of pedagogy. These factors are interest and hard work. The physician occupies a curious place in...

This study explores whether an oath to honesty can reduce both shirking and lying among crowd-sourced internet workers. Using a classic coin-flip experiment, we first confirm that substantial majority of Mechanical Turk workers shirk lie when reporting the number heads flipped. We then demonstrate be reduced by asking each worker swear voluntarily on his or her honor tell truth in subsequent ec...