The Hypocrisy of the Hippocratic Oath

Do no harm. Right? That’s what I swore to do just over a decade ago as have all my medical colleagues. Yet in the medical profession I often wonder why that oath doesn’t apply to each other. When my writing friend Meredith told me about this story in the Boston Globe recently, I wasn’t surprised because I lived it. My story wasn’t a carbon copy but a close cousin, a different flavor as it were. (Yes, friends, I’ve had a few too many ice cream runs with the kids this summer!)

I recall being called to my residency director’s office as a junior resident and 7 months pregnant for asking for a stool at 3am to sit down during a procedure in the neonatal ICU. Not an uncommon request for anyone let alone a someone who was pregnant. The accusation: I was asking for special treatment and perhaps trying to get out of a procedure. If you must know, I actually started the procedure while a very nice colleague hunted for a stool for me.

I recall being warned to not create waves once I announced that I was pregnant and be sure to not “burden the system” by having something go wrong – as if I had control over my pregnancy!

I recall wondering how I was going to breast feed returning to a schedule of more transport call, overnight shifts and all sorts of interesting stuff with a newborn at home. When would I pump? What would happen if I was late returning home? The logistics were mind boggling.

I’ve blogged about this before, about how I opted to bottle feed with the full support of my husband and our parents, my mom in law included who was a neonatal RN for 30 years. We just couldn’t figure out how to pull it off and on the sly my residency colleagues who tried told me they wished they had my resolved. I saw them in tears.

So, when I read the Globe article and saw the reasonableness of Dr. Currier’s request I was baffled. And, disheartened that a decade after my experiences women were still having to battle for reasonableness in the medical work place where pregnancy and maternity issues were at hand. Where does breast feeding fit into anything now a days? This young doctor was asking to have time to pump while taking her Boards yet was told others may find that questionable. So, your telling me that even in our own profession women have to worry about not being accepted? Where do we get the support if not among our own. At the same time, we obviously do not want to start considering having a baby and needing to pump a disability. Right?

Since common sense is clearly not prevailing and has not evolved at all since I was in Dr. Currier’s shoes, and there is no Hippocratic Oath we can hold each other to for how to treat each other in the medical work place, we have to rely on laws. At least with a breast feeding law, the Dr. Curriers of the future will be able to sit for her Boards stress free because the law will be on her side.

What about the other aspects of the medical culture I just alluded to? That is complicated and a blog post for another time to do justice to the myriad of issues women face in medicine including during residency. I will say this for now, it’s not easy for women to become a doctor and have a life. And, to attempt to start that process during residency is a gigantic challenge. We are held to standards no one can meet: if we cut hours at work, we are accused of not being dedicated to our patients.If we cut hours at home, we are accused of not being good moms. So, moms, just be good moms and stop worrying about what people say at work. I’ll leave it there for now but I do believe that in the end, this is what it boils down to.

“Do no harm”. It’s really about time the powers that be in the medical world realized that that one modus operandi doesn’t just apply to our patients but to each other and our entire system.

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