Medicine in the Service of Vanity

Steroids, Nose Jobs, and other Freaks and Abominations
Part 1

The entire country is up in arms over the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. I am not sure why. If you know why, then comment here. It seems, once again that we are living in an amazing world of media hypocrisy.

Don't get me wrong. I don't like the use of steroids, EPO, growth hormone, and other juices in my beloved baseball but ever since the devil incarnate - Walter O'Malley - took the greatest team in the history of baseball, the Brooklyn Dodgers, out of Brooklyn and brought them to the Plastic City on the West Coast (Los Angeles), I knew that baseball was just an entertainment business.

There are two questions we need to think about:

1. Are sports the only business that uses pharmaceutical or traditional medicine techniques to enhance performance?
2. When do we accept performance enhancement and when do we not?

In sports we are using drugs. In the entertainment industry we are using plastic surgery - another performance-enhancing use of medicine. In professional wrestling we encourage and expect the use of steroids. The same is true for professional body-building.

We extend resource after resource to help Olympic athletes in the national training center in Colorado Springs to run one-hundredth of a second faster when we can't even get pediatric immunizations to children in the ghettos of this rich land.

Let's review a bit where medicine came from and how far we have strayed.

There are many oaths in medicine. Every physician took one or another. Why have we fallen so far from this grace?

Here is a review of the major oaths:

• Oath of Hippocrates
• Physician's Oath
• The Loma Linda University Physician's Oath
• The Oath of Amatus
• The Physician's Oath and Prayer of Maimonides

Let's pull out a few choice tidbits from each:

Oath of Hippocrates:
I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked...

Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret

Physicians' Oath:
The World Medical Association, Declaration of Geneva (1948). Adopted by the General Assembly of the World Medical Association, Geneva, Switzerland, September 1948 and amended by the 22nd World Medical Assembly, Sydney, Australia, August 1968.

I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;

I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity; the health of my patient will be my first consideration;

Loma Linda University Physician's Oath
The wholeness of my patient will be my first consideration.

I will maintain the utmost respect for human life. I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity. I will respect the rights and decision of my patients.

I will hold in confidence all secrets committed to my keeping in the practice of my calling.

I will lead my life and practice my art with purity, and honor; abstaining from immorality myself, I will not lead others into moral wrong doing.

The Oath of Amatus
by Amatus Lusitanus (1511-1568)
I never in my medical practice departed from what has been handed down in good faith to us and posterity; that I have never practiced deception, I have never overstated or made changes for the sake of gain, that I have ever striven that benefit might accrue to mankind

I have never produced disease. I have favored no druggist unless he excelled others in skill in his art and in character. In prescribing drugs I have exercised moderation guided by the physical condition of the invalid.

The Physician's Oath and Prayer of Maimonides
May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain.
Grant me the strength, time and opportunity always to correct what I have acquired, always to extend its domain; for knowledge is immense and the spirit of man can extend indefinitely to enrich itself daily with new requirements.
Thou hast endowed man with the wisdom to relieve the suffering of his brother, to recognize his disorders, to extract the healing substances, to discover their powers and to prepare and to apply them to suit every ill.

Do not allow thirst for profit, ambition for renown and admiration, to interfere with my profession, for these are the enemies of truth and of love for mankind and they can lead astray in the great task of attending to the welfare of Thy creatures.

May no strange thoughts divert my attention at the bedside of the sick, or disturb my mind in its silent labors, for great and sacred are the thoughtful deliberations required to preserve the lives and health of Thy creatures.

Grant that my patients have confidence in me and my art and follow my directions and my counsel. Remove from their midst all charlatans and the whole host of of ficious relatives and know-all nurses, cruel people who arrogantly frustrate the wisest purposes of our art and often lead Thy creatures to their death.

I want you all to spend a bit of time absorbing all that these say and then let's explore why in the world we allow Team Physicians of professional sports teams to look the other way when it is obvious the players are taking a variety of medicines that will increase their performance in the short-term but shorten their lives in the long-term.

Why do we allow people who went to medical school call themselves Plastic Surgeons when they are taking knives to people's faces in the name of pure vanity?

Why should we care at all? Why don't we just let people do whatever they want to their bodies for whatever end? Maybe it is because these people - the athletes and the actors are pawns in the lives of the billionaire moguls that profit from these entertainment industries.

We are so outraged with public health issues like second-hand smoke but turn the other way when medicine itself is used for non-medicinal purposes.

Dr. K.

Related Topics: FDA: Halt Unapproved Steroid Drugs, Anabolic Steroids

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