Is There a Future for Hippocratic Medicine?
Moderator: Farr Curlin, MD, Josiah Trent Professor of Medical Humanities, Duke University
Panelists: Ryan Nash, MD, MA, FACP, FAAHPM, The Ohio State University; Eddie Reichman, MD, Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center; and Asma Mobin-Uddin, MD, The Ohio State University
Medicine in industrialized nations seems to have reached a watershed moment. A confluence of cultural, social, political, and economic dynamics has put the practice of medicine on a trajectory toward being merely a powerful set of means to be deployed through a bureaucratically organized industry to fulfill the desires of those who hold the power to choose—whether the physician, the patient, or the insurer, state, or other third party. There does not seem to be any professional consensus regarding what medicine is for, and in the resulting moral vacuum, patients and practitioners find their encounters structured and shaped by forces that seem beyond their control.
This panel will consider whether, and for what reasons, physicians of diverse religious traditions (including nonreligious) might reasonably seek to form an association of medical practitioners who publicly recover and sustain the moral commitments associated with Hippocratic medicine. In ancient Greece, Hippocratic physicians bound themselves to a shared code of conduct in order to preserve the integrity of their art and to earn the trust of those made vulnerable by illness. The Hippocratic movement opposed corrupt ‘medical’ practices that were common in that period and provided an ethical alternative the central norms of which have guided generations of physicians.
The panel includes four physician ethicists, one Protestant, one Orthodox Catholic, one Jewish, and one Muslim. The first presenter will lay out a vision for a new Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, whose members would commit to practicing medicine as a strictly healing profession. To protect against inducements to set aside the patient’s health, members would reclaim and recommit to boundaries observed by centuries of prior practitioners, and particularly the commitment to never kill our patients nor help them to kill themselves. They would commit to practice this honored profession conscientiously, with wisdom, integrity, and genuine care for their patients. For the good of patients everywhere, they would seek to actively win over colleagues and the public through exemplary practices and by providing a more adequate and compelling account of what medicine is for. The first presenter will close by presenting a physicians’ oath that is modeled on the Hippocratic Oath and updated to reflect contemporary language and contemporary pressures and inducements to set aside the commitments and boundaries that the Hippocratic tradition required.
A second presenter will consider this proposal and how it resonates, and potentially conflicts, with traditional Christian understanding both of medicine and of how to faithfully appropriate the pagan Hippocratic tradition. This presenter will argue that although Hippocratic medicine is not fully consonant with Christian tradition, Christians historically have affirmed much within Hippocratic tradition and that Christians today have good reason to form a political alliance around the commitment to health and the refusal to intentionally kill or cooperate in killing our patients. The third and fourth presenters will consider this proposal for a new Hippocratic alliance in light of Jewish and Islamic tradition, respectively. Each will describe ways that the Hippocratic tradition was interpreted in their tradition, and each will give arguments for and against the idea of an Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine—why joining such an alliance might be considered consistent with or contradictory to the commitments of their tradition.
The panelists will then engage the audience in a dialogue about the prospects for an interreligious and ideologically diverse association of physicians who share a commitment to medicine as a strictly healing profession and to not intentionally killing or cooperating in causing the death of patients.
This panel will consider whether, and for what reasons, physicians of diverse religious traditions (including nonreligious) might reasonably seek to form an association of medical practitioners who publicly recover and sustain the moral commitments associated with Hippocratic medicine. In ancient Greece, Hippocratic physicians bound themselves to a shared code of conduct in order to preserve the integrity of their art and to earn the trust of those made vulnerable by illness. The Hippocratic movement opposed corrupt ‘medical’ practices that were common in that period and provided an ethical alternative the central norms of which have guided generations of physicians.
The panel includes four physician ethicists, one Protestant, one Orthodox Catholic, one Jewish, and one Muslim. The first presenter will lay out a vision for a new Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, whose members would commit to practicing medicine as a strictly healing profession. To protect against inducements to set aside the patient’s health, members would reclaim and recommit to boundaries observed by centuries of prior practitioners, and particularly the commitment to never kill our patients nor help them to kill themselves. They would commit to practice this honored profession conscientiously, with wisdom, integrity, and genuine care for their patients. For the good of patients everywhere, they would seek to actively win over colleagues and the public through exemplary practices and by providing a more adequate and compelling account of what medicine is for. The first presenter will close by presenting a physicians’ oath that is modeled on the Hippocratic Oath and updated to reflect contemporary language and contemporary pressures and inducements to set aside the commitments and boundaries that the Hippocratic tradition required.
A second presenter will consider this proposal and how it resonates, and potentially conflicts, with traditional Christian understanding both of medicine and of how to faithfully appropriate the pagan Hippocratic tradition. This presenter will argue that although Hippocratic medicine is not fully consonant with Christian tradition, Christians historically have affirmed much within Hippocratic tradition and that Christians today have good reason to form a political alliance around the commitment to health and the refusal to intentionally kill or cooperate in killing our patients. The third and fourth presenters will consider this proposal for a new Hippocratic alliance in light of Jewish and Islamic tradition, respectively. Each will describe ways that the Hippocratic tradition was interpreted in their tradition, and each will give arguments for and against the idea of an Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine—why joining such an alliance might be considered consistent with or contradictory to the commitments of their tradition.
The panelists will then engage the audience in a dialogue about the prospects for an interreligious and ideologically diverse association of physicians who share a commitment to medicine as a strictly healing profession and to not intentionally killing or cooperating in causing the death of patients.