The original Hippocratic oath is not in use broadly speaking anymore, but there are several updated version such as the Declaration of Geneva. What does your country follow? Most oaths of this nature have a provision including something similar to:
I WILL NOT PERMIT considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient.
The Japanese medical association has guidelines for professional ethics but nothing that includes the above requirements (or similar), and no Hippocratic oath. I imagine China, and Korea also don’t have such requirements, being from similar cultural backgrounds.
Apparently many countries don’t have an oath for doctors. From this article,
Oath taking is not a universal endeavour. A recent survey amongst members of the World Medical Association revealed that in only half of responding countries does a mandatory oath for physicians exist; 30% of the countries surveyed use some kind of voluntary oath and around 20% use no medical oath at all. The prevalence of oath taking varies globally from a full 100% of medical students in the Netherlands and Brazil to, for instance, 50–70% in the UK and close to zero in many African countries. In addition, not only does the content of medical oaths vary considerably across medical schools in the USA and Canada, as Greiner and Kaldjian describe, but it also does so within other countries and around the world.
It comes as a surprise to many people that not only do most U.S. medical schools not require graduating M.D.s to take the Hippocratic oath, the majority don’t use oaths of any kind.
I can’t recall what glurge I promised to adhere to (it wasn’t Hippocratic), but to this day I have never cut for stone.
Count me (a US citizen and resident) among those surprised folks. On the other hand, while I did think that some sort of oath was common and universal, I never thought it had any legal meaning. I always thought it was just some sort of tradition.
One suspects that the opposite question might be posed. What countries require any sort of oath to practice medicine? Whilst nearly every profession has standards of conduct, and professional bodies that in some cases regulate ability to practice, actual oath taking is pretty rare. Oaths that have any enforceable content by dint of being taken even less so.
As implied above, the actual Hippocratic oath contains some obsolete oddities.
State legislatures and medical boards have established legal parameters governing physicians, some of which overlap with standards of ethical behavior. If you’re on the medical staff of a hospital, you’re bound by its regulations. State and national medical associations may have their own ethical standards but those are unenforceable. For instance, there’s an A.M.A. Code of Ethics. Even if I was an A.M.A. member, the organization would have zero power to sanction me for violating its ethical standards.
There’s often a considerable difference between ethical and illegal behavior, the latter of which is primarily the concern of official governing bodies. The original Hippocratic Oath (in addition to doing no harm, still a guiding precept) included things like honoring your teachers (and giving them money if they need it), not being gossipy about patients etc. and swearing to follow these guidelines by “Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses” (I would have no problem with swearing to those good folks but modern fogies have excised that part of the Oath).
One of my minor peeves (big surprise) is people misunderstanding the purpose, scope, and universality of the Hippocratic Oath for physicians - including reporters who should know better.
I have yet to see any version of the Hippocratic Oath that proclaims physicians must treat all comers to their practice under all conceivable circumstances.