Page 4 - Oaths 2019

Introduction
Sir William Osler (1849 – 1919), often considered one of the founders of modern medicine, was a Canadian physician who practiced much of his life in the United States and was one of the founding professors of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and subsequent College of Medicine. He credited the Hippocratic Oath with setting the standards for “the high moral ideals” that still shape modern medicine and challenged all young physicians to humbly examine those standards during each stage in their training. In reflecting on his own life, during his farewell address as her was leaving Johns Hopkins, he commented on the ideals that shaped his career.
I have had three personal ideals: One to do the day's work well and not to bother about tomorrow. You may say that is not a satisfactory ideal. It is; and there is not one which the student can carry with him into practice with greater effect. To it more than anything else I owe whatever success I have had — to this power of settling down to the day's work and trying to do it well to the best of my ability, and letting the future take care of itself.
The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule, as far as in me lay, toward my professional brethren and toward the patients committed to my care.
And the third has been to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief came, to meet it with the courage befitting a man.
What the future has in store for me, I cannot tell — you cannot tell. Nor do I care much, so long as I carry with me, as I shall, the memory of the past you have given me. Nothing can take that away.
• Remarks at a farewell dinner address in New York (20 May 1905)
• Published in Aequanimitas, With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners
of Medicine. Third Edition. Cape Cod, Massachusetts: Blakiston Company, 1951, p. 473.
The word cloud in this booklet springs from the words most often cited in the personal oaths that follow. Thank you to all of the members of the Class of 2021 who wrote personal Hippocratic oaths and to those who agreed to share their oaths in this booklet. Perhaps they will serve as a source of inspiration as you embark upon your own medical careers in the years to come.
Greg Schneider, MD
Course Co-Director
Humanism and Medical Jurisprudence
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