The end is near

Dan and Beatrice are having dinner watching an episode of House, with Leo, the cat with FIP.

...
(on screen)
Dr. House: J'ever notice, how all the self-sacrificing women in history, Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa... can't think of any others, they all die alone? The men, on the other hand, get so much fuzz it's crazy.
Dr. Wilson: It's an unfair world.

Dan: You can say that again. Leo got a bad deal.

Beatrice: Is there any point in continuing the medication? Prednisone, antibiotics, painkillers, appetite enhancer, emetic. He knows it’s unfair for us follow the Hippocratic Oath.

Dan: I don’t think he could recite you the Oath. But he seems to know something is up.

Beatrice: Just sits with his legs tucked underneath.

Dan: It’s time.

Beatrice. I think so.

Dan: So when shall we do this?

Beatrice: You mean take him to the vet?

Dan: He’ll handle it. I wouldn’t know where to bury him.
...

Hippocrates

Hippocrates? Good doctor. Told his group practice colleagues to be clean and tidy and keep their fingernails cut short.

And still famous today. What does it take to be still famous two and a half thousand years later?

He set a good example. Said wise things. Started a school.

So it's not just a matter of saying something sensible. You need to gather disciples to go out and amplify the message.

And you have to say something original. Before anyone else. Or at least be recognized as the first to say it.

An oath.

Yeah. My school made us hold our hands up and recite it before they would let us graduate. Did yours?

I will maintain the utmost respect for human life? And all that? We said it. But sometimes I have heretical thoughts. Like doing my best to keep a patient alive even though its only the medicine doing it and the patient would rather be, shall we say, elsewhere?

Occasionally I have the same doubts. Has technology outrun the Hippocratic Oath so it needs to be redrafted?

Shouldn't be any problem. It's been revised several times as society has evolved over a couple of millennia.
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