Latest news with #HippocraticOath
Korea Herald
5 days ago
- Health
- Korea Herald
Career-switching professionals, twins and trailblazers: Duke-NUS' Class of 2029 redefines path to medicine
SINGAPORE, Aug. 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A new chapter in Singapore's healthcare story began today as 78 aspiring doctors from Duke-NUS Medical School's 19th Doctor of Medicine (MD) cohort donned their white coats and recited the Hippocratic Oath, committing themselves to a future of medical excellence, professionalism and a lifelong service of healing. Duke-NUS' Class of 2029 reflects the School's bold and purposeful cultivation of medical talent—by welcoming individuals from a wide spectrum of academic and professional backgrounds. This year's students range in age from 22 to 33 and include 46 early-to-mid-career professionals who have switched paths to pursue medicine. Forming the School's largest batch of career-pivoting individuals, they bring with them rich perspectives from fields such as law, software engineering and economics. Also represented are fresh graduates from universities worldwide, as well as seven students admitted through Duke-NUS' conditional pathways in partnership with Singapore's top universities. Professor Thomas Coffman, Dean of Duke-NUS, said: "Duke-NUS was founded to reimagine how medical talent is developed in Singapore. By welcoming students with many academic backgrounds and life experiences, we bring together diverse minds united by a shared purpose—to serve, to heal and to improve health for generations to come. The White Coat Ceremony reflects our shared commitment for our students to become competent and compassionate doctors who may also contribute to medicine as scientists, educators, policy makers, innovators and future healthcare leaders." Along with their undergraduate degrees in a variety of fields, six members of the Class of 2029 hold Master's degrees and one has attained a PhD prior to joining the programme. Among the incoming students is Ms Seah Xue Er, Cheryl, 33, a former senior counsel with J. P. Morgan and a private legal practitioner with a decade of experience in law. Ms Seah, who has also taught yoga part-time, believes in competency and in being compassionate when caring for her patients. "I want to be a doctor who is hands-on, passionate and relentless in advocating for the best outcome for every patient. I would be someone who perseveres in the duty I have undertaken to provide the best care, treatment and recovery solution for them," she said. Another student, Ms Tania Chattopadhyay, 30, left a career in software engineering to pursue medicine—a dream she had wanted to fulfil since being inspired by her father's battle with a heart disorder. Now a mother, she is committed to engineering preventive health solutions in cardiovascular and metabolomic disorders treatment. "I believe many conditions can be detected early or even prevented altogether with the right tools, education and systems in place. I want to work on solutions that empower patients to take charge of their health and make care more proactive and effective," she said. This intake also includes the School's first pair of twin sisters, Ms Shruthi Kumar and Ms Swathi Kumar, 23, who studied psychology and engineering respectively and share a passion for healing. "Taking the next step into medicine together feels incredibly special—not just as a personal milestone but as a shared dream we've nurtured side by side," said Ms Shruthi Kumar, with Ms Swathi Kumar adding: "We've always challenged and supported each other, and now, we're excited to approach learning with different viewpoints and to bring our different strengths to medicine, together." Mr Tang Zheng Yang Tony, 24, an English Literature graduate who joined Duke-NUS via a conditional admissions pathway from Yale-NUS College, believes that medicine and literature are "two sides of the same coin" that illuminate the complexities of human life. He hopes to draw from the empathy and introspection instilled in him by his humanities training to offer holistic care as a clinician. "I have been blessed with many knowledgeable professors and a wealth of reading material that enliven me not just in an aesthetic sense, but also philosophically and spiritually, forming an important 'human' foundation for the medical profession," said Mr Tang, a recipient of the Duke-NUS Dean's Scholarship. The Class of 2029 includes 57 Singaporeans, four permanent residents and 17 international students from countries including China, the United States, the Philippines and India. All students will also undergo most of their clinical training at SingHealth institutions and graduate with an MD degree jointly awarded by Duke University and the National University of Singapore. Duke-NUS is the only graduate-entry medical school in Singapore. Its MD curriculum—rooted in research and team-based learning—caters to students who bring maturity, purpose and diverse experiences to medicine. About Duke-NUS Medical School Duke-NUS is Singapore's flagship graduate entry medical school, established in 2005 with a strategic, government-led partnership between two world-class institutions: Duke University School of Medicine and the National University of Singapore (NUS). Through an innovative curriculum, students at Duke-NUS are nurtured to become multi-faceted 'Clinicians Plus' poised to steer the healthcare and biomedical ecosystem in Singapore and beyond. A leader in ground-breaking research and translational innovation, Duke-NUS has gained international renown through its five Signature Research Programmes and ten Centres. The enduring impact of its discoveries is amplified by its successful Academic Medicine partnership with Singapore Health Services (SingHealth), Singapore's largest healthcare group. This strategic alliance has led to the creation of 15 Academic Clinical Programmes, which harness multi-disciplinary research and education to transform medicine and improve lives.
The Herald Scotland
01-08-2025
- Health
- The Herald Scotland
Doctors are utterly wrong, and also utterly right
The rationale behind these prohibitions is very simple, which is that their striking is deemed to place at risk the lives of members of the public. The rationale for banning doctors from striking would be exactly the same. To argue, as many strikers do, that lives are not at risk when doctors absent themselves from work is to argue that they do not save lives when they walk through the door of the hospital. I do not believe that, and given their high level of education it is impossible to accept that the striking doctors believe that either. Perhaps it just makes it easier for them to sleep at night. 'First, do no harm' are the four totemic words extrapolated from the Hippocratic Oath. Hippocrates would not have approved of today's doctors' principle of 'First, go on strike'. Read More: The unpalatable truth is that many of England's striking medics, qualified and accomplished as they are, have all the self awareness of a toddler. The typical path to becoming a doctor lends itself to a relatively accurate stereotype. The rigorous academic requirements mean that doctors will tend to have gone to a good school, which in turn means that they will tend to live in an affluent area, which in turn means that they will tend to have grown up in relatively comfortable circumstances. The youngest of the strikers will not have been exposed to what most of us would consider to be 'real life'. They go from school, to medical school, to the NHS, with little or no exposure to the outside world. They have no need to understand how the wealth creating private sector, which pays their salaries, works. They need not trouble themselves with the economic impact of low public sector productivity. They are unbothered by archaic systems and dismal outputs because they have never been exposed to anything else. They are cocooned; everything is seen through the prism of the NHS. It is hardly surprising, then, that they have been so easily manipulated and exploited by their trade union, which is one of the most fiercely politicised lobbying groups in the country. Not all pre-consultant doctors can be tarred with this brush. A thoughtful few risked ostracisation by speaking up, such as Dr Adam Boggan of the Royal London Hospital, who said: 'I was alarmed because a BMA representative had told a Sky News reporter that losing public support was a price that they were willing to pay. I am not willing to pay that price. My education was funded by the taxpayer … the relationship between the doctor and the patient is based on trust and based on confidence. If we do damage to that basic relationship, that's bad for everyone.' You may, at this point, be thinking two things. Firstly, that I have disdain for doctors. But nothing could be further from the truth; indeed, I am so keen on doctors that I married one. The second, for the eagle-eyed, is that I said two seemingly contradictory notions can be true at once, and I have not yet mentioned the second one. So here goes; doctors are grotesquely underpaid and should be remunerated to at least the degree they are demanding. There is little public understanding of what lies beneath the title. Unlike almost any other job, a doctor will have started making career choices at the age of 13. A school pupil, in S3, will have to choose a particular mix of subjects for their National 5 exams in order to ensure that being a doctor remains a viable career path. They'll need straight A's the following year, of course, and then again at Higher, which will generate only a conditional offer for a Scottish medical school. A good performance in S6 will be required, along with a series of extracurricular activities to elevate themselves above all the other kids who will be sitting a further aptitude examination which will give them the right to be interviewed for medical school. If they do get in, they have six years of university, followed by two years as a Foundation doctor and a further seven or eight as a registrar, often working debilitating hours. They will, in between treating patients, be paying to sit Royal College exams to allow them to continue their careers Ten years of flawless academic achievement followed by ten years of practice in the NHS, working for one of the most inflexible, unsympathetic and obstructive employers in the country, in a failing health system which creates even lower morale, offers a reward of something around £65,000. For context, a train driver, with no academic qualifications and after a three-year qualifying period, will earn £55,000, before overtime and other bonuses, to which doctors are not entitled. What would you be? There is a way around this. Public sector pay is the chaotic consequence of successive governments rewarding the trade union which causes the most trouble with the best pay settlements. We should, instead, create an independent public sector pay commission, staffed by private sector recruiters who understand how to evaluate market value based on education, difficulty, responsibility, demand and so on. They would identify a midline salary and apply a market value above or below for that job. Doctors in England behaved appalling this week, egged on by their trade union. They have articulated their complaint with a maturity that may match their age, but does not match their status. They have further corroded public trust and, ironically, prompted the ordinary person in the street to question the NHS, again. Fundamentally, though, their complaint is valid. Our health service is not facing an 'if you pay peanuts you get monkeys' scenario. It is facing an 'if you pay peanuts doctors will go and work somewhere else' scenario. Andy Maciver is Founding Director of Message Matters, and co-host of the Holyrood Sources podcast
Telegraph
22-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath?
As a young artist, my grandfather took the long journey by ship to Japan in 1908. The trip was his prize for winning a competition. While in Japan, he took up jiu-jitsu, the martial art. It was a condition of his training that he should sign an oath, in his own blood, that he would use the skills he learned for good and not for ill. He was gaining, after all, skills that would enable him to wound or kill. It was required that he would promise to deploy them virtuously and responsibly. It is a similar story with medical ethics. In ancient Greece, as doctors first began to learn methods that could mean the difference between life and death, a code of ethics was developed, known as the Hippocratic Oath. One part of it reads: 'I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them'. It also includes a promise to maintain patient confidentiality and not to poison anybody, even when asked to. Many people assume that trainee doctors still swear the Hippocratic Oath but they don't. Medical schools have their own oaths or declarations. Bristol University, for example, asks its medical students to make a 'promise', the final part of which is: 'I will work for the good of all persons whose health may be placed in my care and for the public wellbeing'. The medical profession is, or at least used to be, a vocation. It was driven in large measure by a desire to do good in the world rather than for the pursuit of financial gain. In the early 20th century, before the creation of the NHS, general practitioners varied their fees according to the means of their patients. It is estimated that one fifth of the population was given treatment for free. Surely today, too, most young people who go into medicine also have at least some sense of vocation and a feeling that their training and skills give them a responsibility to others. But how do they now square these ideas with withdrawing their labour – as they have voted to do – between the 25th and 30th of July? This is not equivalent in any way to industrial action undertaken to delay the collection of bins, or force commuters into the inconvenience of riding a slow rail-replacement bus. Doctors know, better than anyone else, that vast numbers of people are waiting for operations. They know that the delay of an operation or therapy for, say, cancer, means that it is more likely that the patient will die. Cancer, by its nature, grows. If it spreads too far, it becomes impossible to save the patient. By withdrawing their services, doctors know that more patients will have more delays in the treatment of cancer, heart disease and other potentially deadly diseases. Is this what they went into medicine for? To threaten fatal consequences for patients for the sake of a better pay deal? If so, it is a sad transformation of the ideals that doctors once represented. On another issue, the attitude of the British Medical Association to puberty blockers suggests a big change in ideology. The very thorough Cass Review asserted that the evidence base and rationale for early puberty suppression was unclear, and that masculinising/feminising hormone therapy should not be provided for people below the age of 16. The leadership of the BMA is clearly capable of working when it comes to 'critiquing' the Cass Review. It appears to be ideologically opposed to its findings. The Hippocratic priority of doing 'no harm or injustice' appears to have been pushed aside yet again in the service of political expediency. As for assisted dying (in other words, helping to end someone's life) this is, on the face of it, directly contrary to the Hippocratic Oath. If this becomes law, doctors will – or at least one hopes they will – wrestle with their consciences to be as confident as possible that they are 'working for the good of all persons'. But the sad truth is, as a young doctor said to me yesterday, that the philanthropic ideal of medicine is not as strong as it once used to be. Those now entering the field of medicine should not be surprised to see their status in the public eye suitably diminished.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Killer Choice! Will Li Let Luna Bleed Out and Die on B&B?!
Oh, Bold and the Beautiful fans, buckle up because the latest hospital drama with Dr. Li Finnegan and her granddaughter/niece Luna has us all on the edge of our seats! After rushing Luna into surgery to save her life, the situation took a wild turn when Luna started to haemorrhage. Now, here's the million-dollar question: Will Li let Luna slip away? Or will her medical ethics stand strong? Let's be real here, Li (Naomi Matsuda) is the ultimate pro when it comes to saving lives, but this isn't just any patient. This is Luna (Lisa Yamada), the self-destructive, chaos-spreading whirlwind who has been a thorn in Li's side since forever. Luna's antics have caused heartbreak and turmoil, and Li's been fighting to keep her family intact despite the monster-like mayhem. But what if deep down, Li has grown tired of playing savior to this disaster? WATCH THIS: Did you know SoapHub has a podcast?! Check it out here! Luna's been on a destructive path, and the hemorrhage could be the perfect 'accident' to finally end her reign of terror. Would Li let her die quietly on the operating table? The ethical doctor inside her screams 'no,' but the personal side? Oh, that's a whole different story. What's fascinating here is the internal war raging inside Li. She swore the Hippocratic Oath to 'do no harm,' yet family drama and emotional baggage might just push her to throw all that out the window. After all, Luna's destruction has put Li's world upside down. From betrayal to heartbreak, Li's patience has been stretched thinner than ever. Sometimes the easiest path is to step back and let nature take its course, especially when the patient is your very own niece/granddaughter who's become a living nightmare. READ MORE: Get the full scoop on yesterday's action here! But would letting Luna slip away be seen as cold-hearted or justified? Fans know B&B never makes anything simple. If Li crosses this line, it would send shockwaves through the Forrester and Finnegan clans. Imagine the fallout — will Ridge and Brooke be furious? Will Steffy confront Li? Or will some secretly cheer on this 'mercy'? Either way, it's going to shake up the show like never before. The battle between Li's oath and her heart (or hatred) is the drama we didn't know we needed. Will Li find it in herself to save Luna or let her slip away? Stay tuned because B&B's deadly medical drama just got way messier. Got a red-hot theory about your favorite soap storyline? Email amber@ — yours could be our next hot topic!
The Herald Scotland
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
We are being softened up to no longer believe in the sanctity of life
Our priest told us: 'The broken body of humanity is presently not far from our eyes, including last week in the Westminster Parliament which has just passed legislation that an abortion up until birth is no longer liable to criminal prosecution: a beautiful baby expecting life but broken and killed. Or again, the bill to legalise assisted suicide being passed in the House of Commons, breaking the Hippocratic Oath that a doctor is called to save lives and comfort the dying.' Read more by Kevin McKenna As this priest was re-iterating a basic Church teaching, his bosses – the bishops – were living the high life while choosing to cower in the soft folds of their social media account. At Parliament last month, a majority of those we elected to represent us decided that the state could sanction assisted dying with little or no safeguards to prevent vulnerable people – especially those with mental health challenges – being coerced to end their lives. No matter that we have the resources to ease suffering at the end of life: the state had decided that their deaths would be more convenient and less costly than easing their pain. Almost all of the UK's main disabled groups opposed this. The state has effectively said to them that if you require state assistance to live then you are considered a legitimate target. The message to these people and their families is clear: your disability means you are a little less equal than us. It inadvertently highlighted one of the problems that authentic Catholicism has with abortion. If you justify it by saying that an aborted foetus can't exist independently of its mother then what does this say about those in society who are also unable to exist without the assistance of a third party? It begins to encroach on the same territory occupied by eugenics, the purest and most sinister form of capitalism: that you can arbitrarily be classed as undeserving to live if you don't garner enough points on a subjective scoring system in this human perfection procurement exercise. Perhaps it's only a curious quirk of history, but this inhuman and repugnant erosion of human dignity has occurred at a point when – for the first time in what we might loosely call civilisation – human beings are being forced to consider questions about what it means to be fully human. How much value do we set on this when machines can now replicate much of what we once believed to be indisputably and irreplaceably human? The development of Artificial Intelligence is in its infancy and growing faster than our ability to process it and to control it. It's thus reasonable to venture that we are the first stamp of human civilisation to be confronted with a question none before us has had to consider: how much value do we place on being human for its own sake? We are at the beginning of the post-work age and already some have decided that being fully human is now a privilege that must be earned and that a high bar must be set. Anti-abortion protestors pictured outside an Edinburgh clinic (Image: Newsquest) If you want to ask why the richest people and corporations on the planet are spending billions exploring the possibility of human settlements on other planets (for the right sort of people, of course) then perhaps you need to look about you and start paying attention. In truth, the softening-up process has begun. We are already being primed to accept this new normality. Part of this was in accepting that healthy babies can be killed in the womb. Meanwhile, elderly and infirm people must now live with a new jeopardy: that the state's patience and forbearance about their physical and mental state is finite and that when their government decides that critical measures must be taken to protect the economy then they'll quickly become an expensive indulgence. After this, who knows who else the state will deem to be a luxury it can no longer afford? The German philosopher, Karl Jaspers, who was himself persecuted by the Nazis, wrote after the war: 'that which has happened is a warning. To forget it is guilt. It was possible for this to happen and it remains possible for it to happen again at any minute.' Kevin McKenna is a Herald writer and columnist. He is Features Writer of the Year and writes regularly about the working-class people and communities of Scotland.
