"I agree , no oath should be taken lightly . However , I believe that a certain amount of interpretation is essential , especially in grey areas that medicine can wander into . Abortion to save the life of the mother is a grey area that doctors have to wrestle with . Separating siamese twins where there is only one heart , allowing one to live while the other dies instead of both dying is a grey area . Following an oath such as that to the letter puts things too much in black and white , when a lot of good medicine happens in the shades of grey ."
"In the examples you gave , the doctor is clearly trying his * very best to save the most lives he can . What if the Siamese twins were in no mortal danger while together ? And what if one Siamese twin has legs but the other does n't ? Is n't the other twin dependent on the one with legs ? Could a doctor ethically remove the legless twin if the legged twin wanted to and if the legless twin was retarded and the procedure would leave the legless twin dead ? * ( or her best .. I 'm sorry but my doctor is male , so I will no longer use `` his/her `` or `` he/she `` ... it just gets tiring after a while ... )"
"I agree , no oath should be taken lightly . However , I believe that a certain amount of interpretation is"
"In the examples you gave , the doctor is clearly trying his * very best to save the most lives he can ."