WHILE I CONTINUE to keep this Oath inviolate may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art and science of medicine with the blessing of the Almighty and respected by my peers and society, but should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse by my lot.

Know Our Subject

Our words and actions reflect who we are. Prayer is essential. We need to begin and end the day with prayer. It is the way we need to ground ourselves. We hold lives in our hands. How can we not start with prayer? It is essential to face the challenges of the day on our knees.

Humanae Vitae – Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI, 1968 – changed everything. “Let your conscience be your guide” no longer meant the same thing. “INFORMED” conscience – had to start actually upholding the Hippocratic Oath, follow the Magisterium - as written. So, what do you do, when modern technology, modern media, etc. is screaming to do different things?

• Don’t guess – ask questions – really find out what they want to do. Don’t judge.
• Offer as much information to the patient as possible – help guide them to as fully an informed decision as possible
• Support them as much as possible
• Even in a “crisis” situation – attempt to teach them that at “crisis” moments there can be moments of real grace possible – families can come together, support each other through things they never thought possible.
• In the end, if they insist on a procedure that you know is unethical – you may have to simply tell them “I can not in good conscience do that” – and they will have to go elsewhere. You are allowed to do this, under law.

The formation of one’s spiritual life is essential to face the tasks that come our way.

Mother Teresa

“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”

“Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”

“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”

“Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.”

“Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”

“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.”

“There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”