How the Hippocratic Oath changed in Africa

How medical care changed over the years.
Will we ever get back to what we once had? Is that even desirable for modern patients?
Sometimes I do not know any more.

I spent my nursing career in public hospitals. In the early years we used to be given little books of devotion to carry in our pockets. I am sure it made our patients feel saver whether hey believed in religion or not.
That went with the nurses’ veils and caps.
It was as if the nurses wanted to modernize. They wanted to be like everyone else. They no longer wanted to be on a pedestal.

The Nurses “pledge” as it is being practiced in South Africa and some other countries today.

Hippocratic Oath (African Interpretation)

I shall forsake the needs of my patients in order to strike for more money.
I shall milk the hard earned cash from my patients to the best of my ability whether they can afford it or not.
I shall refuse treatments to patients who are too poor to afford my fees.
My personal need and wealth comes before those of my patients at all times.
I shall not be held responsible for death or suffering as a result of my treatment.
All treatments received under my care is given at the patients own risk.
My patients are, at all times, the means to my financial rewards.

The Hippocratic Oath (Modern Version)

“ I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Hippocratic Oath (Original English Translation)

I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.


Perhaps it is time that people in charge of governments honor workers who heal the sick so that they can feel worthy again and live up to their highest ideals.

Being hollowed out

The truth/lie about stomached ulcers.

Being a retired person, one has time to enjoy life’s experiences, whether they be work or family related.

This morning, while pondering over my possible last fatty breakfast of coffee, bacon, eggs and buttered toast, my mind examined every tasty mouth full of food. I chewed every morsel of bacon, egg and toast until it became fluid, in order to extract each and every flavoring particle for the absorption by my taste buds.

I am not sure if I will be able to enjoy the nice crispy bacon fat mixed with the yoke of the nicely fried egg again.
It tasted like the best breakfast I ever had.

My mouth welcomed it, my esophagus carried it happily to my stomach and my gallbladder said: 'let’s get to work breaking this fat load down while we can'.

Every part of my anatomy was happy and the last remnants of the tasty breakfast still linger in my mouth.

So why all this fuss over a little breakfast? Why this post?

As from now I am on a diet of clear fluids prior to gastroscopy and colonoscopy procedures tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow a little camera will be passed into my stomach and bowel to exclude any nasties, like cancer or polyps, prior to removing my gallbladder, which is believed to be the cause of the chest pains that feel like heart attacks, which I have been having...

Personally I think they have the ‘kat by die stert beet’ but then that may be one of those labels the doctors put on patients who do not want to accept their medical conditions. That label called 'denial'.

Just last week I had another imaginary label stuck to my forehead, by my GP, when I described my gastric and chest discomfort. That one was called ‘Hypochondria’.

A nice name for a baby: Imagine saying ‘Hypochondria go and do your school work’

My name is no longer ‘Hypochondria’ because I now suffer from a

‘delayed bile flow condition’ due to a gall-stone. So they say.

So I have a little gall-stone. So what? It is mine, it does not necessary need to be removed, so I redekavel. Surely if my gall-bladder was so troublesome, why can I enjoy this large breakfast of bacon and eggs so much?

The surgeons of today are far too eager to chop people’s body parts out because they feel it is not essential to health.
They think God created people full of needless spare parts, it seems.

I think it is man who is unable to understand the full glory of God’s creation. One day, perhaps we will understand just how vitally important each and every organ in the body is and aim to preserve, or replace it, rather than ‘chop it out’.

I was fifty when they chopped my uterus and ovaries out, pushing me into menopause overnight.
I was told that it was better to remove it because it would cause problems later in life.
(The removal of the ovaries was due to a surgical accident but that is another story).
The argument, at the time was that I did not need it anyway.

They possibly took my appendix out too because they believed that I did not need it either.

If they could they would remove my tonsils because ‘I do not need it’

Now the surgeons are about to remove my gallbladder because it is not necessary for health.

Soon I shall be like an empty vessel that can only make a lot of noise. (So I shall still have my tonsils – I hope)

Anyway, what this post is about is what I was thinking while I ate my last fatty breakfast. I was pondering on the mechanics of eating.

The food enters your mouth then it gets mechanically mashed by your teeth.
The more you chew your food, the less work your stomach has to do in order to break it down.
One can assume that people that chew their food well have to secrete less stomach acid.
Failing to chew food well will place a strain on the stomach which has to break those hunks of un-chewed food down chemically. (Using a strong acid)

Un-chewed food remains in the stomach longer, because an acidic chemical process is needed to make the food useable to the body.

The food beaks up in the holding-tank (stomach) and gets released in small amounts, as it digests, also causing a hold-up in the gallbladder (that has to break down the fat) and the pancreas (that breaks down the sugar and other nutrients)

Can you see how by neglecting the simple process of chewing food properly, we can have such a host of other gastric stress and congestions.

We all know that stress causes ulcers. We know the bigger the hurry, the faster we eat.
Acids can burn through the bowel linings and cause ulcers.
The shorter the time that food remains in the stomach the less chance there is of developing ulcers and indigestion.

Perhaps if stressed people can only take time to eat regular small meals and chew each mouth-full to a masticated pulp before swallowing, many stress-gastric symptoms can be avoided.

Chewing food well, from childhood, can possibly prevent obesity, stomach cancer and a host of other gastric problems in later life.

Eating and chewing with consciousness can possibly be a key to a longer life. Think about it.
It could prevent being surgically hollowed out in old age.

Perhaps parents should train their little children to chew their food, rather than delight in seeing an empty plate.

So mum, next time you hurry your little one through his plate of food, consider the surgical problems you may be training him to have later in life.



Of wat praat ek alles.

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