dr-exmedic.com

It turns out that insted of automatically reciting the Hippocratic Oath at our medical school graduation, we get to vote on which of several modern oaths we take.  As much as I think such oaths are silly to begin with, the original Hippocratic Oath is particularly ridiculous as it’s a bit outdated and not very useful for some members of any graduating medical school class (particularly surgeons): 

To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage….

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Please note also the opening line (a plea to Apollo and other Greek gods) and the fact that the sick person isn’t mentioned until the third paragraph.

In my mind, however, there’s only one real option, and I nearly fell over laughing when I saw it.

The Oath of Lasagna.

I didn’t even have to read it to know that I wanted that to be the oath read at our ceremony.  I did manage to find it, though (at the same link as the Hippocratic Oath but lower on the page), and I particularly like the part about “avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.”  I can really get into that sort of imagery…even if the oath makes me hungry.