Horror | Anime | Ethics
Monster: The Limitations of The Hippocratic Oath
Dr. Tenma didn't have to do all that.
Monster is a manga adaptation by the celebrated mangaka Naoki Urakawa. It ran for 74 episodes and to this day is considered a masterpiece in storytelling, with its antagonist described as one of the best villains ever written.
I want to use this work to raise a question I believe is worth exploring: is a doctor responsible for saving the “wrong person”? Or, broadly speaking, what are the limitations of the Hippocratic oath?
A little background of the story
Monster follows Dr. Tenma, a talented Japanese man who immigrated to Germany to work in a neurosurgery department and make his mark. At the beginning of the story he is well respected, engaged to an affluent woman, and on the way to a massive promotion at the hospital.
One night, he receives a call to treat a little boy who had been shot. While preparing for the operation, he is told that the mayor needs emergency surgery. Unfortunately, not operating on the boy would risk his life so he makes the right decision and performs the surgery on the kid.
The mayor dies and he is blamed for it. He loses his standing at the hospital, as well as his fiancée who now realizes that he has no future.
Frustrated, he goes to the boy’s room and vents, wishing death on the men who ruined him for doing the right thing. The kid survived and was awake and listening to the doctor. The following night, the boy murders the doctors who threw Tenma under the bus. A few years later, Dr. Tenma meets the kid again, who confesses that he was responsible for the death of the doctors and thanks Tenma for saving his life.
Dr. Tenma feels extremely responsible. From that day on, he swears to end the life that he once saved because if it weren’t for him, this serial killer would not be alive and the lives of so many others would have been saved.
What is the Hippocratic oath?
The Hippocratic oath is an oath of ethics that physicians have taken throughout history. It originated from a Greek text and served as a guide for doctors for centuries. This oath has been updated over the years and recently some schools have even allowed students to create individual commitments in accordance with their religious beliefs or other cultural and moral preferences.
A lot of concerns have been raised about this oath, including the way government and companies require patient information, just how far should doctors risk their lives while treating extremely dangerous and contagious diseases, or even its pagan origin.
However, today I would like to talk about the responsibility of the doctor after the treatment, if they should receive praise when they save a patient life and or blame when they fail to do so.
Gratitude, malpractice, and everything in between
Doctors hold the lives of many people in their hands every day. They literally perform miracles by healing and saving millions of lives that then affect families, friends, jobs, religious institutions, and governments. When a loved one is brought back to health from a state of disease, we feel a sense of relief and generally thank the doctor for their service, which I would say is absolutely fair.
And on the other hand, when they mess up and affect our loved ones negatively, we file malpractice lawsuits. In some cases, we have the doctor fired or arrested depending on the gravity of the situation, which I would say is also fair.
But should a sexual assault victim blame a doctor for treating her rapist? Should kids be mad when their abusive parent is brought back to life by a fantastic doctor after a car accident? How should we react when a doctor saves the wrong person?
I personally do not think that they should be punished. They did their job by treating their patients. What happens afterward is not their fault. Unlike parents, doctors do not spend that much time with their patients. They do not raise them, they do not educate them, and they cannot meaningfully impact their philosophy or even morality.
What happens if a doctor does indeed feel responsible for saving a criminal? Should they take action? Should they just deal with it internally?
On the flip side, do doctors have a right to take credit for extending someone’s life to a certain extent? How much credit can they receive for saving a future Nobel peace prize winner; and how much blame can they take for saving a genocidal maniac?
References:
- Monster (Anime)
- The Hippocratic Oath (Original Version)
