A doctor’s oath and occupied Palestine

Despite facing calls for her dismissal, Dr Ritika Goel continues to speak out on Palestine.

Eleven years ago, Dr Ritika Goel took an oath. Part symbolic ritual, part solemn commitment, it is the Hippocratic oath that doctors have been obliged to recite for millennia. Dr Goel, a Toronto family physician and teacher, has made it plain throughout her career that every word of that oath imbues her every deed as a healer. Beyond her fidelity to the oath’s more familiar aspects, Dr Goel, by all accounts, has always kept this lesser-known instruction front of mind: “I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings.”