Columbia Med Students Chant ‘New Hippocratic Oath’ to ‘Confront Unconscious Prejudices’ in Resurfaced Video

Columbia University received backlash online after a resurfaced video showed medical students reciting a revised version of the Hippocratic Oath that included tenets of critical race theory.

The video, posted by nonprofit Mythinformed Milwaukee, shows the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons Class of 2025 during a White Coat Ceremony reciting an oath led by Lisa Mellman, M.D., a senior associate dean for student affairs and the Samuel Rudin professor of psychiatry.

When did medicine start sounding like a cult?

The Columbia Medical School has altered its hippocratic oath to include pledges of fealty to Neo-Marxist and woke ideology. pic.twitter.com/JT7EsqgChy

— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) February 13, 2023

According to a news release on the Columbia University Irving Medical Center website, the August 2021 ceremony was the first time in the medical school’s 255-year history that the incoming medical students recited their personalized class oath, a spin on the Hippocratic Oath to “better reflect the values [students] wish to uphold as they enter their medical training.”

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“We enter the profession of medicine with appreciation for the opportunity to build on the scientific and humanistic achievements of the past. We also recognize the acts and systems of oppression effected in the name of medicine. We take this Oath of service to begin building a future grounded in truth, restoration, and equity to fulfill medicine’s capacity to liberate,” the oath begins.

The oath also instructs students to contribute to the field of medicine through “ethical study and equitable, evidence-based care” as well as “address systemic issues in the institutions” upheld by the medical profession.

“I promise to self-reflect diligently, to confront unconscious prejudices, and to develop the skills, knowledge, and character necessary to engender an inclusive, equitable field of medicine,” the students chant in another portion of the oath.

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