Getting Back to the Oath of Hippocrates is the Way Forward, by Dr. Marilyn M. Singleton

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Written in about 400 B.C., the Oath of Hippocrates embodies the guiding ethical principles of the practice of medicine. The Oath focuses on individual physicians treating their individual patients. All of our actions must be for the benefit of the patient; we must keep all of their information — “holy secrets,” as the Oath states — confidential. Our duties attach whether the patients were “free or slaves.” If we actually paid attention to these principles, we would not need Big Brother’s rules.

The bloated bureaucracy is only getting worse with electronic records, prior authorizations before treatments, and various other payment barriers. There are now 10 administrators to each physician. Physicians and patients alike feel like they are helpless pawns on the corporate chessboard. Perhaps the Affordable Care Act meant well, but in my view, it was another tool to impose more government controls on us. The overall costs are higher, and patients find themselves with fewer choices of physicians. …