Hippocratic Oath Essay

As a physician, it is your sworn duty to protect those that are being treated under the Hippocratic oath. Although there are different dictations of the original oath, they all have the same context. When the law comes into play, physicians should remain true to the oath. When physicians take this oath, they have an obligation to keep their patients from harm and injustice. As a Hippocratic oath pledgee, one is also vowing to neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor make a suggestion to this effect. In modern times, society’s pressure can cause physicians to conform, but as a future physician, forcibly medicating a patient for a progression to death will never be a portion of my practice.

Physicians are given their surname,

Wainwright held that executing the insane was a violation of the Eighth Amendment. When a practitioner provides antipsychotic drugs to help the inmate regain competency, they are exercising their medical knowledge and skill to preserve the inmate’s well-being. When the inmate regains competency, the proceedings for their execution continue because it is no longer considered a cruel or unusual punishment. Although our court systems allow this forceful treatment, it violates the inmate’s right to refuse a treatment. The practitioner’s role is within the scope of the Hippocratic oath because he/she is preserving life and is not prescribing/suggesting any lethal dose. Physicians monitor the health of the patient and procedures followed during an execution to ensure that the patient does not suffer during the punishment. Dr. Gawande researched capital punishments and found that lethal injection is the most accepted punishment, but has a history of being mismanaged and feels that they can be performed reliably with the presence of a medical professional (Cochrane). While practitioners play a conservational role in the proceedings of executions, they are ultimately assisting in executing the patient. In other words, the medical professional is implicitly suggesting that a lethal dose be prescribed. Participation by a practitioner in the execution proceeding, in any treatment capacity, is a violation of the Hippocratic oath and although it is not directly causing the death,