Hippocrates stricken in Gaza

The Hippocratic Oath states: "I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity. The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration. I will cure all patients with the same diligence and commitment. I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics, or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient."

In Gaza, doctors and nurses where killed, hospitals and ambulances targeted. Those who dedicate their lives to heal are attacked because they were trying to live up to the oath.
UN, WHO, WMA, Geneva conventions. IHL.. words and acronyms that do not hear the cries of agonizing heroes nor smell the odor of putrid bodies of innocent heroes.

Picture: Palestinian doctors send the wounded babies to a hospital in Gaza City on Monday morinng. Israeli warplanes pounded the building of Palestinian Foreign Ministry on Sunday night which is the second attack against Palestinian government building within one week.

Doctor-patient relationship

"The message I want to convey in this painting is most of all the relation of trust, a bond that can and must be built between the physician and the patient. The scene resembles a powerful womb where you can 'pass out' as a result of the anesthesia one takes. Yet, knowing that one is in trustworthy hands makes all the difference. This is so on the scientific, the psychological and the moral levels. After all, physicians are human beings with whom we share the same fate and the same human condition." Exclusively for our blog by Mimoza - the painter of Between Blue and Green.

Many patients are complaining about the physician-patient relationship. Doctors, they say, are skilled people who know the science of medicine quite well. Yet, when we are in their presence, we are reduced to an illness, a disease. What is lacking is a physician-patient relationship that makes the patient feels that he/she is a person cared for, not an illness to be treated.
Why has this happened and what can be done to remedy the vision of the old medical practitioner as 'healer'?

Bioethics Matters