Letter: The doctors' oath

Sir: The proposal by Sir Kenneth Calman of a new version of the Hippocratic Oath, which he claims would identify "one of the crucial tensions - care for the patient versus responsibility for the community" (report, 9 June) could put doctors in an impossible position unless they can participate at the highest level in decisions about the allocation of the nation's resources to the health services and in mid-level decisions on, for example, whether to pay nurses more and NHS managers less. Otherwise, their "responsibility for resources" will simply mean they have to take more flak at the front line for decisions made by others; this is not responsibility.

And what is wrong with an oath beginning "I swear by Apollo", the god of medicine, art and light? Hippocrates' teachings are after all not that outdated: a doctor "ought to have an appearance which is distinguished. In his dress there should not be an abundance of purple ... his hair should not be too much smoothed down ... he should wear white, or nearly white, garments. He should approach the patient with moderate steps, gazing calmly at the sickbed ... he should endure peacefully the insults of the patient..." (Admonitions of Hippocrates, translated by Loren MacKinney).

MARGARET MILLER

Coventry