Hippocratic Society: restoring the foundations of medicine

The Hippocratic Society seeks to restore religious foundations of medicine. Perhaps a suitable response to the cri de coeur posted here some time ago?

I'm enjoying the most recent podcast which explores the intrinsic goodness of medicine, and contains echoes of Hillsdale College.

By way of introduction, a clip from Stanley Kurtz in the National Review.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/introducing-the-hippocratic-society/

Like the Federalist Society, the Hippocratic Society will be a place where conservative views are hosted and put into debate with progressive perspectives. And undoubtedly, conservative-leaning medical students will find colleagues and mentors among its members.

The Hippocratic Society has another function as well, however, ... likely to appeal regardless of political perspective. HippSoc (the abbreviated name of the group) addresses the closely related problems of physician burnout and the bureaucratization of medicine, modeling a return to human-scale doctoring. In furtherance of this, HippSoc reconnects doctors to the philosophical and religious roots of medicine, cultivating an active appreciation of the profession’s higher purpose. HippSoc’s activities on this front will surely appeal to many physicians and medical students, politically conservative or not.

... Hippocrates is most famous, of course, for his oath, the code of medical ethics that many or most modern doctors once swore to uphold. The original Hippocratic oath forbade both abortion and physician-assisted suicide. Most medical schools therefore now either forgo the oath altogether or rewrite it to modify or eliminate those and other provisions.

Most Hippocratic Society members, by contrast, tend to remain loyal to the original oath and to the more encompassing “do no harm” morality that lies behind it. Also, as we’ve seen, HippSoc works to revive knowledge of the philosophical and religious (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) foundations of medicine, going back as far as Aristotle. It’s a return to medicine in the great tradition.

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The Hippocratic Society is growing rapidly. When Kheriaty wrote his book, published in September of this year, HippSoc chapters for premedical and medical students had been established at nine universities. I now count 28. (If you’d like to join, or start a chapter of your own, go here.)

What Kheriaty recommends for medicine applies more broadly. We need to establish a set of alternative institutions across many fields of endeavor in order to break monolithic progressive control of our institutions under the guise of “professional” consensus. The Federalist Society established the model. The Hippocratic Society, with modifications, continues it. With luck, we’ll see yet more to come.