Not on Olympus

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction . . . All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession . . . which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

From the Hippocratic oath (circa 400 B.C.)

Such a simple declaration was adequate for the dawn era of modern medicine but it does not go half far enough for the modern psychiatrist, says Dr. Maurice Levine, professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. For today's psychiatrist, facing "issues immeasurably more subtle and sophisticated" than any that confronted Hippocrates, Dr. Levine suggested at a meeting of the Ohio Psychiatric Association a revised version. Its key points in summary:

"I shall follow the good advice of the Hippocratic oath. And if ever I find myself doing a medical treatment for which I am not prepared, or trying to be seductive to a patient, I will recognize that I have a serious neurotic disorder and try to get treatment. I will not give drugs because I am impatient, nor use psychotherapy because I have free time.

"I will observe myself as well as my patients, and if at any time I detect in myself too much anxiety, too much sympathy, too much coolness, or too much conceit, or diffidence, or leniency, or strictness, or any other excessive attitudes, I will make an honest attempt to modify them by my own efforts. I hope that I will retain perspective about myself that I will never think that being a psychiatrist means living on Mount Olympus.

"If, however, even after a stringent self-scrutiny, I do not see any issues in my own personality that interfere with my work, I shall breathe a sigh of relief."

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