As a senior medical student about to move on to residency, the overwhelming emotion I have at this time is one of disillusionment. At the heart of the Hippocratic Oath, both classical and modern, is the vow to avoid doing harm and to help when appropriate and necessary. Yet medical education, both undergraduate and graduate, brutalizes its students. With such inhuman work hours for so many years, alienation from one's family, health, and peace of mind is often the result. Falling asleep at the wheel is common, and deaths of both residents and medical students have been noted in the press.
Medical mistakes are inevitable when people are so exhausted.
The medical literature clearly and unequivocably states the risk to health and even life when people are sleep deprived, but medical educators seem to believe that somehow, magically, doctors can rise above their own physiology. Physical and psychological abuse from attending physicians are common complaints of both residents and students. I took the original Hippocratic Oath in 1982 upon my graduation from medical school and returned to this institution upon completion of my training. I have done my best working as an overworked, underpayed academic physician in high-risk obstetrics in a metropolitan city teaching university since then. Several years ago, a junior medical class within our Catholic medical school demanded removal of any version of the Hippocratic Oath at graduation.