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Steven Miles, MD is Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis and is on the faculty of the University’s Center for Bioethics.
He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics and teaches and practices at the University of Minnesota.
He has served as President of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and received its Distinguished Service Award. His other awards include the National Council of Teachers of English’ George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language and membership in the National Honor Society for Public Affairs and Administration.
He has published three books and more than twenty chapters and 120 peer-reviewed articles on medical ethics, human rights, tropical medicine, end of life care and geriatric health care. His latest book, Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror, Random House, 2006 examines military medicine in the war on terror prisons. The Hippocratic Oath and the Ethics of Medicine, Oxford University Press, reviews the meaning of the Hippocratic Oath as illuminated by the medical texts of its time.
He has taught in many countries and has served as medical director for the American Refugee Committee for twenty-five years which has included service as chief medical officer for 45,000 refugees on the Thai Cambodian border and projects in Sudan, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Indonesia and the Thai-Burmese border.
His work has changed end of life care, nursing home care, and medical care in prisons and refugee camps.
Publications
Anna Pou: No homicide, no euthanasia.
by Steven Miles, MD
The case of Anna Pou in New Orleans has generated enormous controversy. Briefly she was arrested for homicide in the deaths of four patients at Memorial Medical Center in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The local medical examiner did not find that the deaths were caused by homicide. A Grand Jury declined to refer charges for criminal homicide. Even so, the families of several of the decedents are proceeding with civil suits related to the deaths. Furthermore, experts for Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti continue to publicly proclaim that Dr. Pou committed suicide.
Mr. Foti’s experts reports are on line at http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/08/27/memorial.medical.center.pdf
Dr. Pou’s attorney asked me to review this material and I have done so. I have not taken any money and do not intend to do so for this case.
View this document in its entirety.
Published in Summer 2007 Bioethics Examiner
Hippocratic Oath: A 2007 Vernacular Version *
by Steven Miles, MD
I swear by human grief at the mortality of our loved ones, by the family of healers, by all manner of treatments and by health itself to fulfill this oath according to my power and judgment; and to respect those who have taught me this art and to support the institutions of health education, and to esteem those who aspire to become healers as my brothers and sisters and to share the facts, theories and methods of the healing sciences with them. I will use treatments for the benefit of the ill in accordance with my ability and my judgment but from what is to their harm or injustice I will keep them. I will not commit murder nor will I assist such endeavors. I will not endanger a woman in pregnancy.
In a pure and holy way I will guard my life and my art.
To each clinical encounter, I will go for the benefit of the ill and I will refrain from unjustly treating them, especially from sexual acts with my patients or their relatives. I will remain silent about the private things that I see or hear regardless of whether I learn of them during treatment or in broader conversations, if I honor this oath and do not evade its spirit or violate it, may I enjoy the benefits of life and of this profession and be respected by all. If I transgress, the opposite be my lot.
*[This version is derived from the translation of von Staden H. J Hist Med Allied Sci 1996;51:406 and the analysis of its cultural meaning in Miles S. The Hippocratic Oath and the Ethics of Medicine, Oxford University Press, 2004. I deleted the passage, I will not cut, and certainly not those suffering from stone, but I will cede [this] to men [who are] practitioners of this activity, because it was probably inserted centuries after the 500 BC writing of the Oath.]
Dr. Steven Miles has several publications that can be purchased from Amazon.com by following the links below.
Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror