Physician, heal thyself (IOKIYAR edition)

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist acknowledged Tuesday that he may not have met all the requirements needed to keep his medical license active — even though he gave paperwork to Tennessee officials indicating that he had.

The state of Tennessee requires its licensed physicians to complete 40 hours of continuing medical education every two years. Frist, a heart-lung surgeon who is considering a 2008 presidential run, submitted a license renewal with the Tennessee Health Department stating he has fulfilled that requirement.

Responding Tuesday to repeated requests from The Associated Press, a Frist spokesman said the Republican senator may not have done his continuing education after all, and had contacted the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners to see if corrective steps were necessary.
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Starting with renewal applications filed in January 2005, the state required doctors to have completed 40 hours of continuing education in the two years that preceded their filing.

A renewal application Frist filed with the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners in February of this year specifically mentions the continuing education requirement and bears his signature.
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Tennessee law states that doctors who fail to do their continuing medical education "will be subject to disciplinary action."

Dan Warlick, a Nashville lawyer who represents doctors in trouble with the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners, said a case such as Frist's would likely be taken seriously.

"They have been routinely revoking licenses for physicians who have misrepresented to the board what they have done," Warlick said.

"Medicine changes," Warlick added. "If you're telling them you're keeping up, and you're not, that would be a very significant problem for the board to have to deal with."

Bill Frist, February 12, 1999, Congressional Record:

The President broke his oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God. He likewise broke his oaths to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

Just how important are oaths? We take oaths to substantiate the sanctity of some of our highest callings. Years ago, I took the Hippocratic Oath to become a physician. In January 1995, I took an oath of office as a United States Senator to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Then, just last month, I had to take a special oath of impartial justice for this impeachment trial. Raising your right hand and swearing before God is meant to be serious business. Swearing falsely is equally serious. I recall the conclusion of the Hippocratic Oath:

If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

President Clinton broke his oaths; the opposite of honor and fame should be his lot.