Question

1. The health and medical sector is an extraordinarily broad and important component of society. One way of identifying the importance of health, healing, and illness in society is to note the extent to which the social institution of medicine is closely interwoven with all or almost all other social institutions. Identify how the social institution of medicine interrelates with each of these other social institutions: science, government, economy, education, family, law, religion, the arts, and recreation.
2. Point five in the Law of Hippocrates includes the statement, "Those things that are sacred, are to be imparted only to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to the profane until they have been initiated into the mysteries of science." What is meant by this statement?
3. There are now many contemporaneously written oaths to which physicians and other health care providers pledge. Search online, identify one alternative oath, and compare and contrast it to the Hippocratic Oath.

Answer 1

Identify how the social institution of medicine interrelates with each of these other social institutions: science, government, economy, education, family, law, religion, the arts, and recreation.

The social institute of medicine performs the task of preventing diseases, diagnosing diseases, provide treatment, discover new drugs, and invent new easily affordable diagnosing tools, etc. in order to promote the health of humans. The social institute of medicine cannot provide services to everybody only with the knowledge of medicine. Medicine cannot develop tools that can help in surgeries, diagnosing, etc. Hence, medicine collaborates with science and technology to develop new pharmaceutical products and biomedical products to offer quality treatment to patients. Necessary subjects have been framed and taught in schools, colleges in order to bring awareness among people on staying healthy and fit. Several new policies are being offered by government of different countries for their citizens to save money for their healthcare emergencies at affordable costs. Every nation spends a considerable huge percentage of their annual budget towards quality healthcare services for people. The leisure activities such as arts, sports etc., are being prescribed as effective way to bust stress and stay healthy. Several research works are being carried out to find an effective healthy lifestyle as a substitute for medicines.

Law of Hippocrates includes the statement, "Those things that are sacred, are to be imparted only to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to the profane until they have been initiated into the mysteries of science." What is meant by this statement?

The above statement describes about the doctor-patient confidentiality. It explains that the relationship between a doctor and patient is a scared one and the doctor shall not hide any details to the patients. The doctor also shall never indulge in sharing the details of the patient to anybody else, at any circumstances. This is applicable to the consultations, health reports (xray, scan, blood report), etc. When there arises a circumstance where the details have to be shared to achieve a breakthrough or identify an intricate problem, with the permission of the patient they shall be shared with other experts for opinions.

American Medical Association has the following as an oath regarding doctor-patient confidentiality.

“A physician shall respect the rights of patients, colleagues and other health professionals and shall safeguard patient confidences and privacy within the constraints of law”.

When the Hippocrates and the American Medical Association oath are compared, it can be found that both imparts same ethics and moral, except for Hippocrates, which offers the luxury for doctors share reports of the patients to other experts, to seek opinions , under challenging situations.