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medpundit |
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Thursday, March 25, 2004"Physicians for Human Rights conducted the survey over two weeks in June and July at three hospitals in Najaf and Nasiriyah. Most of the 98 doctors interviewed were male. Nearly all identified themselves as Shiite Muslims, who represent the majority of Iraqis but were generally shut out of power under Hussein's rule. About half said that physicians were "extremely" or "quite a bit" involved in the amputation of ears as a means of punishment and the falsification of reports involving torture victims. Nearly a third said the same regarding falsifying death certificates and releasing medical records to government officials without a patient's permission. Other abuses, which physicians said occurred less frequently, included removing the organs of a patient - dead or alive - without consent, participating in torture and administering "mercy" bullets to kill people who had survived torture or ill treatment. The Iraqi doctors aren't the first, and they certainly won't be the last to participate in torture. Doctor's don't operate in a vacuum, and they aren't saints. Like any group, there are among them bigots, sociopaths, and moral cowards. And under regimes like Saddam Hussein's, it's the bigots, sociopaths and moral cowards who flourish. How can we avoid such moral outrages among the ranks of the profession? The authors of the study have a solution: The authors also suggest that ethics education for physicians could play a pivotal role in preventing future abuses. If that's all it takes, someone send some ethics symposium brochures to this doctor and this doctor - quick. posted by Sydney on 3/25/2004 10:24:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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