Beyond the Hippocratic Oath: A Memoir on the Rise of Modern Medical Ethics

Alan Belk is a sessional instructor in the Philosophy Department at the
University of Guelph.

John B. Dossetor, after whom the University of Alberta’s Health Ethics
centre is named, has led a life of distinction as a nephrologist and,
latterly, an ethicist. In this autobiography, he uses many instances
from his own career to illustrate how ethical challenges snuck up on him
and how his own behaviour was not always ethically correct.

When Dossetor started his career at the end of the Second World War,
the prevailing view was that the doctor knew best. Today, we take it for
granted that patients will have a say in the determination of their own
treatment. Dossetor is keenly aware that the criteria for judging
ethically correct behaviour have changed over the last 60 years. As a
result, his book presents a range of ethical case studies that show how
we need to keep our ethical antennae operating all the time. Equally
importantly, it presents a history of medical ethics since the middle of
the last century, as well as the author’s place in that history
through his work to establish ethics as part of the medical curriculum.
In making medical practitioners aware that their work has an ethical
dimension, Dossetor has helped to change the way medicine is practised.

Beyond the Hippocratic Oath is an important contribution to the field
of medical ethics.