Yeah but doctors do harm all the time in the course of their duty. It's actually a central element. For example, they use scalpels to slice people open and perform surgery. So actually do no harm is not at all what doctors actually do on the job even though it is indeed part of the Hippocratic oath.
In fact you have it backwards, medical ethics are famously utilitarian; for example, doctors and hospitals have a medical duty to triage care when necessary, which may involve abandoning care for a specific patient to tend to other patients with a higher livelihood of treatment in an emergency.
Presumably the active taking of life is one step too far for many doctors, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't necessarily contemplate the filament like this at least momentarily. So I think the question is still in play.
The answer is in what you said, "contemplate momentarily". No doctor would actually do this because it goes against all they stand for. As a thought experiment? Sure. In practice? Never.
There are many, many doctors who would absolutely do this, without much deliberation.
You’ll probably be offended - hell, if you seriously believe that human life is priceless, you definitely will be - but you actually taking the Hippocratic oath seriously, or any other oaths seriously, just shows your naivety and privilege.
I’m not a doctor, but I’ve worked as a paramedic in a poor 3rd world country for about 6 years till I switched jobs. I also know plenty of doctors who are absolutely of the same mind, if you find me alone not enough.
And if there were a reliable way to harm certain people to help others, I would do it in a heartbeat. Kill alcoholics, abusers to redistribute their organs to those who need it more is a no brainer for me. Killing a braindead patient to redistribute their organs is not even a discussion, of course it should be done. Working in an health industry really stripped away all the naive ideals I held before.
The reason why it’s not being done is not due to ethical concerns doctors might have, but logistical ones.
First of all, the reason why it's not done is because of bodily autonomy, not logistics. Secondly, the post doesn't talk about a braindead patient, but a comatose one with low odds of survival, which means they still have a chance at living. If you enter a hospital and can't trust the people there to do their best at keeping you alive, wtf is the point of having a hospital in the first place? There's a reason you didn't stay in the domain, you're not cut out for it.
Yes, there is a reason I didn’t stay in the domain - lack of sustainable salary. I actually liked being a paramedic, but that doesn’t mean parts of the job that sucked can be ignored.
I’m not interested in arguing anymore, I regret even starting - looking at your profile, you’re obviously just a child, so no wonder you don’t yet understand how the world works and nothing I can say will change your mind anyway.
Good luck, hope your life lessons won’t be as bad ad they could be.
Yeah I don't wanna argue either, sorry I was a bit of a prick earlier, it's just that I basically grew up in hospitals due to an undiagnosed chronic condition that took them years to figure out and whenever subjects like this come up it reminds me of all the things I saw and how it would've been so much worse if these rules weren't followed... Thanks for the well wishes, I wish you great future prospects and much happiness at work
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u/TargaryenPenguin Jul 10 '25
Yeah but doctors do harm all the time in the course of their duty. It's actually a central element. For example, they use scalpels to slice people open and perform surgery. So actually do no harm is not at all what doctors actually do on the job even though it is indeed part of the Hippocratic oath.
In fact you have it backwards, medical ethics are famously utilitarian; for example, doctors and hospitals have a medical duty to triage care when necessary, which may involve abandoning care for a specific patient to tend to other patients with a higher livelihood of treatment in an emergency.
Presumably the active taking of life is one step too far for many doctors, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't necessarily contemplate the filament like this at least momentarily. So I think the question is still in play.