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The relevance of the Hippocratic Oath to the ethical and moral values of contemporary medicine. Part I: The Hippocratic Oath from antiquity to modern times

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Abstract

The present paper discusses the relevance and significance of the Hippocratic Oath to contemporary medical ethical and moral values. It attempts to answer the questions about some controversial issues related to the Oath. The text is divided in two parts. Part I discusses the general attributes and ethical values of the Oath, while Part II presents a detailed analysis of each passage of the Oath with regard to perennial ethical principles and moral values. Part I starts with the contribution of Hippocrates and his School of Cos to medicine. It continues by examining the moral dilemmas concerning physicians and patients in the Classical Times and in the Modern World. It also investigates how the Hippocratic Oath stands nowadays, with regard to the remarkable and often revolutionary advancements in medical practice and the significant evolution in medical ethics. Further, it presents the debate and the criticism about the relevance of the general attributes and ethical values of the Oath to those of modern societies. Finally, it discusses the endurance of the ethical values of the Hippocratic Oath over the centuries until today with respect to the physicians’ commitment to the practice of patient-oriented medicine. Part I concludes with the Oath’s historic input in the Judgment delivered at the close of the Nuremberg “Doctors’ Trial”; this Judgement has become legally binding for the discipline in the Western World and was the basis of the Nuremberg Code. The ethical code of the Oath turned out to be a fundamental part of western law not only on medical ethics but also on patients’ rights regarding research.

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Notes

  1. For the purposes of the present paper, we have adopted the definitions of the World Medical Association about ethics and morality. These definitions refer to them as follows: “Ethics is the study of morality−careful and systematic reflection on and analysis of moral decisions and behaviour, whether past, present or future. Morality is the value dimension of human decision making and behaviour […] According to these definitions, ethics is primarily a matter of knowing whereas morality is a matter of doing ” [3, p. 9].

  2. Thales, Heraklitos, Anaxagoras among the most famous.

  3. The letters M and V are abbreviations given by WHS Jones to these manuscripts.

  4. The first Arabic translations from Greek texts including medicine appeared in the 9th century.

  5. It is worth noting that in Greece, the birthplace of the Oath, the original Hippocratic Oath without the invocation to the ancient Gods is taken upon graduation in only two of the seven medical schools. The other five schools have devised graduation oaths which reflect social changes and modern values.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their wholehearted sincere thanks and appreciation to Professor Eva Kalpourtzi and Ms Iliana Antonakopoulou for their valuable and constructive comments, and their continuous help and support with editing the present manuscript. They also wish to thank Professor Panagiotis Miliotis for his useful comments and Mrs Pinelopi Stefanaki for her professional processing of the figures of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Emeritus Professor of Anaesthesiology, School of Medicine, University of Crete, 31 Stefanou Nikolaidi str, GR71305, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Helen Askitopoulou

  2. Lawyer, Supreme Court, Athens, Greece

    Antoniοs N. Vgontzas

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  1. Helen Askitopoulou
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  2. Antoniοs N. Vgontzas
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Correspondence to Helen Askitopoulou.

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Askitopoulou, H., Vgontzas, A.N. The relevance of the Hippocratic Oath to the ethical and moral values of contemporary medicine. Part I: The Hippocratic Oath from antiquity to modern times. Eur Spine J 27, 1481–1490 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-017-5348-4

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