Medicine God Morality and the Hippocratic Oath.pdf

An Open Letter to My Bethlehem Family

The Hippocratic Oath, although not Christian in its original form, contains six important tenants or principles. If doctors ignore these principles, you are at risk as a patient.

Today, less than 1% of new doctors recite the original Oath of Hippocrates upon graduation. Most recite a watered-down version of the oath. In 1993, researchers examined the contents of the 68 different oaths used at that time. They discovered that although 100% pledge a commitment to patients and 86% a pledge to teaching, only 43% vowed to be accountable for their actions, only 14% include a prohibition against euthanasia, only 11% invoke a deity, only 8% foreswore abortion, and only 3% retained a proscription against sexual contact with patients.

And that was in 1993.

The first principle of the Hippocratic Oath is transcendence, which means submission to a higher authority. We worship the God of the Universe who created us and sustains us. I’m going to focus on accountability to God in this article.

Accountability means we will answer for thoughts and actions on the day we stand before God. Accountability is a humbling thought, a fearful thought. Doctors will be judged, as will we all.

Modern medicine, however, views religion as an “acceptable delusion” as I was taught in medical school. Without God, medicine today makes its rules on the fly; the end justifies the means, the situation determines right and wrong, the greatest good for a group trumps the treatment of the individual. If there is no absolute truth, if there is no God-defined morality on which to base the doctor-patient relationship, if there is no accountability to the God of the Universe, then there is no protection for the patient. It is God’s truth and God’s morality followed by a committed physician that protects a patient from harm. It is a doctor realizing that he or she is ultimately accountable to God, not the corporation, not the government, not the economist, and not the bureaucrat that patients need for safety.

Examples of doctors abandoning God abound. German physicians in World War II placed accountability to State above accountability to God, and 6 million Jews were euthanized.

Today, doctors place accountability to eugenics, “improving” the human race, over accountability to God, as genetics testing illustrates. Seventy to 90% of all Down syndrome babies exit life through the abortuary and never draw a breath. Thirty percent fewer babies with cystic fibrosis now are born because of prenatal testing and abortion. Other genetic problems are at equal risk. Genetic testing for abortion seems to be no big deal in our society. Doctors willingly encourage and financially benefit from this practice. Two states have now legalized assisted suicide (euthanasia) of the elderly and infirm. But genetic testing for abortion and euthanasia are big deals to God because life is a big deal to God.

Modern medical ethics also allows interference with the doctor-patient relationship, placing a barrier between the doctor and patient. Currently doctors are rewarded for being thorough and complete in trying to make a diagnosis and treat their patient. That is changing. Prominent doctors want to jettison the oath altogether and reward doctors for practicing “cost effective” medicine, meaning denying care if the doctor or the state does not see the value of it. Government bureaucrats, large health care organizations, and insurance companies have developed protocols and checklists for doctors to follow. Examples would be cshecklists for diabetes, high blood pressure, and even end-of-life care, to name a few. Doctors are rewarded with more pay if they achieve a quota of what the protocol wants and less pay if they don’t.

But what if your situation doesn’t fit the checklist very well? Then, your doctor still follows the checklist—too bad for you. You may get testing or medicines you don’t need, or, worse, you may be denied care you do need. So, instead of the doctor seeing you as a patient, a fellow traveler through life, a life created in God’s own image, he sees a list of rules and checklists first and you second. His allegiance will be to the government, the corporation, or the checklist-maker, not to you individually as a patient.

What if the checklist says you are too old for treatment? (Not cost effective.) Or too disabled for treatment? (Too expensive.) Nothing exists in modern medical ethics to prevent denial of care or even euthanasia in such situations.

Doctors are granted special status in society because they have power to do so much good. But they also have power to do harm by limiting care, denying care, and even killing (and doctors are good at killing, as 50 million abortions have been done since 1973). Those doctors not anchored to Christ, and God’s unchangeable principles of morality have nothing to prevent them from misusing their power.

Christ honored human life with his sacrifice on the cross (Romans 5:8). His sacrifice shows us the value of each and every human being. We, of all creatures, are created in God’s own image (Genesis 1:26). The psalmist says, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” (Psalm 139:14). I pray that the Great Physician in his sovereignty may yet restore doctors to God-centered accountability.

Matthew Anderson, MD, OB/GYN

Dr. Anderson is a member of Bethlehem and a practicing OB/GYN doctor at the Fairview Lakes Medical Center in Wyoming, Minnesota.