Today was our third lecture with Professor Evangelos Afendras and we learned about philosophy and ethical thinking in ancient Greek. .
The point in the lecture which intrigued me was the Hippocratic Oath. The Hippocratic Oath is perhaps the most usually known of Greek medical texts. It entails for a new physician to swear upon a number of healing gods that he will uphold a number of qualified ethical standards. It also strongly binds the student to his teacher and the greater community of physicians with responsibilities similar to that of a family member.
Medical doctors does this promise before they be a doctor. However, they forget to act towards this promise most of the time. How many cases have occurred in this world that, people lose their spouse, children, parents, sibling and relatives? I lost my grandmother and my uncle since of the careless mistakes made by medical doctors in charge of them when they were under observation after the operation done. Well I have personally experience that doctors sometimes gives medicines that is not required. In 2005 when I was 16 years old, I was sick and none of the medicines worked. Therefore, I was admitted and kept under observation. They did lots of blood test, scans, bone marrow, injected me and also they did a tuberculosis test since they suspected me for it. However it turned out to be negative. Since I had fever for one month and the entire test turned out to be negative the doctor gave me the medicines for tuberculosis.
After taking those drugs days passed by I was getting weaker, I was unable to attend to school, I vomited the whole day, my eyes were getting blind and I cried for the pain that I was undergoing. Only my parents and sibling knew the situation that I was going through, but for sure they wouldn’t have known how I felt after eating 12 and a half tablets early in the morning before breakfast. I went for consultation and I told the doctor everything, he was worried, he put his head down and told me “young girl what can I do I am trying my best for your recovery”. I was admitted again for observation.
Once again the started the same old scanning’s, blood test, urine test, x-rays and tuberculosis test again. The entire test turned out to be negative. Then my parent decided to take me to India for treatment to CMC medical hospital in Vellore. There was a team of doctors who were observing me. When I went to the hospital my eyes was red in color. It was almost the colour of the blood. The doctors started to observe me and they start to repeat the test. I cried and told I don’t want to do the bone marrow test. They told me I don’t have to do and they don’t understand why the doctor from Sri Lanka made me do the bone marrow test. They also said that the tuberculosis drug that was given to me was not right medicine, and I should eat it after breakfast. They wanted to stop the drugs but if I stopped it, no drugs will work for me, since we have to complete the course of the drugs. Days passed by in CMC hospital and I was getting better. They day that I was discharged the doctor told me, that I had to thank God for coming there. Since my eyes was getting bling day by day. He told me that I would have lost the sight of seen. I was 18 years old when I was recovered. I lost two years of my teenager and two years of my studies. Due to that medicine that was given to me, at that time.
I consider this as an ethical issue, because of the mistake that the doctor did my parents, sibling, relatives and I was harmed a lot. Therefore I would pray to God that this wouldn’t happen to anyone and I hope that the doctors will keep their promise and work honestly.
The last thing that was interesting to me about lecture was the conversation between Socrates’ and Callicles. In their conversation Socrates proves that good and evil can’t occur and the same time for example: health and disease can’t occur at the same time. If you have a disease, that means you not healthy. If you are healthy you won’t be having a disease. Therefore good and evil will not occur at the same time.
(Reflective Diary Day 1 (3rd weak lecture) – lecture 29th January 2013)
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