Primum non nocere

The "prime directive" of medicine is simple and to the point.

"First, do no harm."

In medicine, we are not tasked with the impossible job of deciding whether or not a person deserves to live or die. I have treated cops & prisoners. Priests & atheists. Rich & poor. It is what a doctor is supposed to do, and we are not supposed to do less for a patient based on our judgment (or even society's) of how they lived their life.

Some will say, with some justification, that we do practice some indirect judgment by accepting or not accepting Medicaid patients, the indigent, etc. That is true, and I am shamed by my colleagues who turn patients away based on ability to pay.

The governor of Kentucky, Ernie Fletcher, is a pro death penalty Republican. He recently signed a death warrant for a convicted murderer.

On Nov. 8, Fletcher signed a death warrant for 51-year-old Thomas Clyde Bowling, convicted of shooting to death the husband-and-wife owners of a dry cleaning business outside their store in 1990. Bowling is set to die by lethal injection Nov. 30.
The problem? Governor Fletcher is also a doctor with a current medical license.
American Medical Association guidelines bar doctors from taking part, directly or indirectly, in executions. And Kentucky requires doctors to follow AMA ethical guidelines.
If Governor Fletcher wants to sanction, support, and encourage state sponsored killing, that's his business and I will oppose him in the political forum in my own small way. But if he wants to continue to call himself a doctor he is more hypocrite than Hippocratic.

His license should be pulled, and if he is a member of the AMA, he should be ousted. Doctors should not kill.

Yahoo! News - Kentucky Governor, a Doctor, Risks License




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