More violence-inciting doctors
Further to the rush of commentary last week on "how could" a medical doctor engage in violence, as a handful of Muslim-immigrant physicians in Britain recently have, I thought of a few more names of violence-inciting docs (to add to that of the notorious Dr. Baruch Goldstein referenced by Juan Cole and others.)
They are, in no particular order: Che Guevara, Charles Krauthammer, Radovan Karadzic, and Frantz Fanon, all of them trained as physicians, but advocates in one context or another of the use of coercive violence. (The latter three of these, interestingly, were trained as psychiatrists.)
The Hippocratic Oath, of course, enjoins doctors to "do no harm". But in reality, the practice of modern, western-style medicine often involves cutting into people, giving them powerful chemo drugs, or doing other things that in themselves are potentially risky or even sometimes life-threatening-- but to do so in pursuit of the future (and hopefully greater) good of becoming either wholly or partially cured. Thus can perhaps too easily be inculcated the idea that "the end justifies the means"?
Come on ! You can't compare Fanon to Karadzic.
Fanon did not advocate murder. Sartre did so in his preface to Fanon's book.
dr. mudd, helped booth.
Personally, I admire a tremendous amount of what Fanon wrote and did. But we must surely recognize that he also wrote quite a lot about, and seemed quite clearly to advocate, the redemptive qualities of revolutionary violence; and I think that whole argument, which had a lot of influence on countless others around the world, needs to be open to being questioned. In general, I find it's better not to have sharply 'black and white' views of other people (or political movements), but to try to recognize and engage with their deep moral complexity.
Do no harm from the Hippocratic perspective describes the act of protecting the individual being treated by a medical doctor and weighing the risks of a treatment for the benefit of potential cure or life-prolonging therapy as in the case of chemotherapy. It does not pertain to risks/benefits of harming civilians for "a greater good" of society. Some would argue there is scant evidence that violent acts have produced benefits to society.
The concept of revolutionary acts are not entailed within the descriptions of the profession of medicine although they may be argued for in very SPECIFIC conditions by some as stated in the preamble of the declaration of human rights: "Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law" I do not think this applies to the people in question who performed the acts in the UK.
and recently psychologists assisted the CIA and US military with torture techniques
Right, Susan. And this latter case is interesting because the main professional body of the psychiatrists ruled that its members should NOT take part in these torture-support activities-- basing their argument precisely (and imho, accurately) on the Hippocratic Oath-- while the Am. Psychological Association would issue no such guidance, saying its members are guided not by any Hippocratic principle but their own consciences (or lack of.) So in that case, adherence to the H.O. provided good guidance.
Radical MD, I agree.
You know, I've turned around on my opinion of our last Surgeon_General Camonara (sp?). He has come out to say he was muzzled by bushCo. My previous thoughts on him were really about bush; bush had managed to find a doctor who had shot and killed someone. Touching in that bush way.
Yep, doc whatshisface was a police SWAT doc.
They are called agents of death, and perhaps agents of someone's fat bank account. The bigger question is: Who are such people? What makes them tick? An education does nothing to prevent someone from doing harm, we know this.
Only the Brits can be so short sighted to solve their MD shortage by importing doctors from Iraq and other high risk places. By high risk I mean radical Islam areas where the probability of these individual to hold a serious grudge against the host country is 10% or more.
You can complain all you want but there has been un undeniable public outcry in the UK and the politicians seem to be responding to that pressure.
Avoiding an HIV positive dentist is not discrimination, it is risk management, and I owe it to myself and my family. Likewise with other risk factors like place of origin.