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Sun Simiao

Decent Essays

In general, contemporary physicians are primarily trained to be competent in the field of medicine, from diagnosing their patients to prescribing therapy. Yet, they are not heavily taught medical ethics during their schooling: how should physicians conduct themselves around their patients? Nevertheless, medical traditions in China and Greece were thoroughly concerned about this question, which led to several of texts. In particular, the Greek developed an oath, known as the Hippocratic Oath, which were historically taken by physicians to essentially do no harm, while a Tang physician, Sun Simiao, wrote a text, “On the absolute sincerity of great physicians” that explained how physicians should behave around their patients. These two texts share a few comparable ideas on medical ethics, including compassion and competency. They also have dissimilarities since the Hippocratic Oath incorporated religion to medical ethics while the Sun Simiao incorporated philosophical principles, such as Confucian and Buddhist principles, to medical ethics. One of the similarities that the Chinese and Greek share regarding medical ethics is that both Sun Simiao’s text and Hippocratic Oath believed that a physician should display compassion. In “On the absolute sincerity of great physicians”, Sun Simiao mentions physicians should “aid every life and every man” or “one cannot destroy life, in order to save life” (27). In other words, physicians should not discriminate patient and attempt to

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