“En busca del Hipócrates moderno”

Abstract

Roger J. Bulger has exposed the “search for the modern Hippocrates” as the way to adapt medical practice to the limitations imposed by the so-called managed care, the model that governs health administration and prevails en the United States, and today in Colombia from the enactment of “Ley (Act) 100” of 1993. This model has turned health care into a market commodity, and the intermediary companies hold and flaunt a dominant position leading, on the one hand, to the crisis of the public hospital network; and, on the other hand, to the deprofessionalization of medicine, taking it to the verge of becoming a simple trade to the service of corporate interests. The imminent signature of the Free Trade Agreement (the “TLC” in Spanish) poses new constraints to the rendering of health care services, particularly as relating to the availability of low-cost generic medicaments. Medicine is confronting a serious dilemma. Her moral obligation lies in endeavoring to do the best for the patient; in other words, in abiding by the Hippocratic imperative; but it is limited by the bureaucratic action of the intermediary insurance corporations, where the main objective is the restriction of costs for higher profits. In this article, the original old Hippocratic Oath is transcribed together with the Modern Hippocratic Oath proposed by R.J. Bulger, as translated by E. Otero-Ruiz, and the Physician’s Promise passed by the World’s Medical Associations. The author includes other considerations with respect to medical professionalism and the need to invigorate it to safeguard the values and principles of Medicine.