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“Just as the UN was founded in the spirit of shared humanity, so was medicine. The Hippocratic Oath, and its popular modern equivalents, puts caring for human beings and treating each life as equal at their very heart. Surely it is not just the brave few health professionals in the firing line who have the responsibility for meeting the health needs of civilians injured in conflict. Médecins Sans Frontières—doctors without borders—should not just be the name given to one medical humanitarian organisation. If the Hippocratic Oath means anything, all doctors whatever their situation, specialty, or seniority should live up to this name by calling on their national governments and the international community—perhaps through their national medical organisations—to ensure that civilians injured or affected by conflict receive the medical attention they need, wherever these people may be in the world. Such action is not being a so-called humanitarian—it is what being a member of the medical profession should be all about.”
The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9658, Page 95, 10 January 2009 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60015-5
