Hippocrates' Oath and Asclepius' Snake

T. A. Cavanaugh's <em>Hippocrates' Oath and Asclepius' Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession</em> articulates the <em>Oath</em> as establishing the medical profession's unique internal medical ethic - in its most basic and least controvertible form this ethic mandates that physicians help and not harm the<br>sick. Relying on Greek myth drama and medical experience (e.g. homeopathy) the book shows how this medical ethic arose from reflection on the most vexing medical-ethical problem -- injury caused by a physician -- and argues that deliberate iatrogenic harm especially the harm of a doctor<br>choosing to kill (physician assisted suicide euthanasia abortion and involvement in capital punishment) amounts to an abandonment of medicine as an exclusively therapeutic profession. The book argues that medicine as a profession necessarily involves stating before others what one stands for: <br>the good one seeks and the bad one seeks to avoid on behalf of the sick and rejects the view that medicine is purely a technique lacking its own unique internal ethic. It concludes noting that medical promising (as found in the White Coat Ceremony through which U. S. medical students matriculate)<br>implicates medical autonomy which in turn merits respect including honoring professional conscientious objections.