Hippocrates

Medicine today suffers almost as much from political intervention as ever it did from priests, shamans and religious dogma of the past. Reform, liberalism, and political correctness marginalize Hippocrates, the hippocratic method, and with him the sacred, ethical, humanitarian and scientific charactor of the profession.

Ideals of reform, political control, regulation, commercialization, political correctness and well intended lay ideals of social progress erode the authority, self regulation and ethics of the profession. Imagine lawyers without the standards and restraints of "The Bar."

Imagine doctors without the standards and restraint of peer review, held only to the gray areas of legality with profit, cynically, the only motive. The evolution of greed seems more and more evident at many levels. I fear that medical school reform proposes to adjust curriculum in order to accommodate this sad reality.

Take the now universal after hours sign off to 911. When did local medical societies decide that a doctor no longer needed to provide after hours availability for response to after hours emergencies or complications? I think in fact it was hospitals, not the medical society that made that change. Was there economic motive? You bet. Hospitals are now a multi billion dollar monopoly with legal sanction. For myself, I thank God for the VA and trust only the mainstream medical school.

On a historical level, medicine has suffered before and recovered; it will do so again. For the medical student, read Hippocrates, travel to some of the great medical schools abroad, be a humanitarian, a poet, a musician and always a scientist. Own a microscope. Do good works.