Can somebody please explain this to me? Anybody?

[hunter]

46. My little brother, who was planning to be a paramedic like the television show Emergency!, ...

... went out on a call that turned out to be a murder / attempted suicide.

They saved the guy who had murdered his wife but he'd splattered too much of his brains to ever stand trial. He died many years later in state care.

I think that call turned my brother off any kind of emergency medicine forever. There are many less horrible ways to make the world a better place that don't involve splattered brains, which is kinda like where I went as well with PTSD I don't talk about here.

My wife and my sister are made of sterner stuff. They save everyone. That modern Hippocratic Oath is a hell of a thing.

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not", nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

w

I HATE GUNS.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency!