Ancient medical oath is 'updated'

The dean of a New York City medical school has rewritten part of the 2,405-year-old Hippocratic Oath to make it more inclusive for female doctors.

Antonio Gotto of Cornell's Weill College of Medicine told the New York Post he realized during rehearsals for a recent graduation that part of the oath was meaningless to his students.

"The students would laugh because it sounded so funny," Gotto told the newspaper.

The original oath opens with a promise to teach medicine, without charge, to "my own sons and those of my teachers," and, therefore, excludes female medical students.

Gotto updated the oath to read, "Just as I have learned from those who preceded me, so will I instruct those who follow me in the science and the art of medicine."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

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