Readers offer their opinions on a Saskatchewan doctor disciplined for counselling a patient against abortion and the high salaries of Saskatoon library managers.
We were taught in medical school that pregnant patients represent two lives: the mother and her developing fetus. Any medical decision must consider the well-being of both. Modern medicine’s advancements, including in-utero surgery, underscore the fetus’s distinct status as a patient.
Even ancient medical ethics recognized this dual responsibility. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, forbade abortion and medical societies considered harming either patient grounds for a physician to lose their practice. This principle held true for centuries.
Doctors often need to deliver difficult messages to patients for their own good. Patients who disagree are free to seek a second opinion.
However, the college is forcing this doctor to compromise his medical judgment and conscience. Ironically, the college mandates an ethics course for a doctor acting in accordance with longstanding ethical principles.
Perhaps the college should take an ethics class themselves and, while they are at it, perhaps dust off that copy of the Hippocratic Oath they have lying around. Their actions are a disservice to both patients and the medical profession.
Mark Leakos, Saskatoon
Cut salaries of Saskatoon library managers
The board of trustees for the library should decrease salaries for executives and increase salaries for regular employees.
Library taxes can’t be further increased because they’re already too high, but the new downtown library doesn’t need to be built when there’s already an excellent downtown library.
Ashu Solo, Saskatoon
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