ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Eleven newly-graduated medical students in Michigan recently took the Hippocratic oath — an oath almost all medical schools have discontinued in the past generation.

For 2,400 years physicians had traditionally subscribed to the Hippocratic oath as a way of pledging to uphold moral principles in their practices. Now it is being replaced by codes that reflect the culture's changing mores and that no longer refuse such things as abortion, euthanasia and sexual activity with patients.

The fourth annual Hippocratic Oath Banquet on May 29 in Ann Arbor was hosted by the Catholic Medical Association's Lansing, Mich., guild and the Christian Medical Association. The 11 students represented three nearby universities — primarily the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor but also Michigan State University in Lansing and Wayne State University in Detroit.

“Taking this oath at the banquet allows me to fellowship with and receive the support of physicians who are doing what I believe in” said Eric Achtyes, past president of the Christian Medical Association at the University of Michigan.

Along with Achtyes and the other new doctors, 24 local physicians took the oath as well as 13 first-, second- and third-year medical students. More than 100 friends and family members were also present.

“Being surrounded by believing physicians like this is important for me,” he continued. “I spent two years in a Christian mission hospital in India, and we prayed for patients right from the beginning. We saw some amazing things, including some patients — who we thought wouldn't last the night — end up getting better.”

Erosion of Morals

Edmund Pellegrino, a Catholic and professor emeritus of medicine and medical ethics at the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., noted in his keynote speech and in an earlier interview the reasons for the demise of the Hippocratic oath and what should be the Catholic response.

“When I became a physician in 1944, I was expecting big changes in medicine but not big changes in how doctors view their profession,” Pellegrino continued. “We have lost the religious notion that being a doctor is a vocation, not an occupation. It used to be that if someone violated the Hippocratic oath they were thought to be a social pariah and were subject to blame and shame.”

Pellegrino said he is glad there is a group of medical students who are courageous enough to take the Hippocratic oath and live by its code.

“That personal witness of a pro-life physician, along with prayer and political action, are the best way to affect the current situation,” he said. “We need to be consistently pro-life, whether it is assisting a woman who is considering abortion, helping the poor, eliminating the death penalty or dealing with a just-war situation. Every time human life is threatened, we need to protect it.”

Pellegrino, who has written and spoken extensively on ethics and philosophy in medicine, mentioned three of Pope John Paul II's encyclicals as must reading to help counter the opponents' position: Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason, 1998), Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth, 1993) and Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life, 1995).

“The Holy Father said at the beginning of his pontificate that he wanted a dialogue between Church and culture,” Pellegrino said, “and these documents deal with the most pregnant issues of our culture today — those coming out of the bioethics field.”

Meaningful Oath

William Chavey, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan and emcee of the May 29 banquet, invited Pellegrino to speak at the banquet. When he informed the dean of the University of Michigan medical school about it, the dean asked that Pellegrino also speak at the medical school's commencement May 30.

Chavey was also influential in founding the Hippocratic oath banquet, which has now spread to New Jersey, Georgia and California. He said barring any dramatic shift in our culture, those taking the oath will remain a minority.

“However, it would be worth it if just one person were to take it,” he said. “It allows the physician at the earliest point of [his] career to make a profession that reflects [his] core values, and to do it amid the support of community physicians.”

For Karen Saroki, president of Catholic Medical Association at the University of Michigan, where she just finished her second year of medical school, the Hippocratic oath is a reminder of what being a doctor is all about.

“The service aspect of being a physician is primary,” she said. “The gifts, desires, and enjoyments in this profession that God has given me are to serve him and others.”

The oath administered at the banquet was restated by the late Joseph R. Stanton, M.D., and is copyrighted (1995) by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. Stanton made a couple of revisions to the oath written by Hippocrates in about 400 B.C. but maintained the basic principles.

“For instance, we don't swear to a Greek god,” Chavey said, “and we no longer say that ‘we won't cut a stone.’ Removing kidney stones was something they weren't qualified to do. We have updated the language and say that we won't do anything beyond our competence.”

Though the banquet attracts mostly Christians, that didn't matter to Saroj Chowdhury, a Hindu from India and a graduate of Wayne State University.

“When I received the invitation to the banquet,” he said, “I realized that I believe the same as they do, and I wanted to be part of it and receive the support of the group.”

Bob Horning writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Information

Hippocratic oath banquet:

Lansing, Mich., Guild of the Catholic Medical Association (734) 930-7480

[email protected]

Dr. Rich Watson at [email protected].