Keshav Sharma, Academic Peer Reviewer at Journal of Psychosocial oncology Research and Practice, shared on LinkedIn:
“I never took the Hippocratic Oath.’
And yet, every day, as a Mental Health Professional , I find myself sitting with people whose lives have been profoundly altered by illness, dying, loss and uncertainty. That thought has stayed with me for years.
The Hippocratic Oath is traditionally associated with physicians. But as I have worked in psycho-oncology and palliative care, I have increasingly wondered:
What does that oath mean for those of us who never formally took it?
- For psychologists.
- For counsellors.
- For social workers.
- For nurses.
- For physiotherapists.
- And for every professional who enters the room when a person is vulnerable.
Perhaps the oath was never really about the ceremony.
Perhaps it was always about the responsibility that comes with being trusted by another human being at their most vulnerable.
To do no harm, to protect dignity, to hold confidentiality, to recognise our limitations. And perhaps most importantly, to not Abandon.
Palliative care, in many ways, reminds us of this unfinished promise: when cure is no longer possible, care does not end.
Sometimes, our most important intervention is simply to remain.
I have written about this tension in my latest article for ehospice:
‘The Oath We Never Took: On Hippocrates, Palliative Care, and the Quiet Ethical Debt Every Mental Health Professional Owes to the Medically Vulnerable.’
The article is a reflection on professional identity, ethics, palliative care, and the unspoken responsibility we carry when someone places their vulnerability in our hands.
If you work with medically vulnerable people, do you believe you have an ‘unsworn oath’?
And if you did have the opportunity to take one, what would you promise?
Other articles featuring Keshav Sharma on OncoDaily.