Is the primary aim of the Hippocratic Oath focused on patients' rights to decide their own medical care?

• A. Yes
• B. No
• C. Sometimes
• D. It depends on the tradition

Answer: (B)

The main idea tested is what the Hippocratic Oath is fundamentally about. Historically, the oath sets the physician’s duties to patients and the profession: to heal and do good, to avoid harming the patient, to keep confidences, and to pass on medical knowledge to successors. It frames medicine as a duty borne by the healer toward the patient and society, not as a declaration that patients have the ultimate authority to decide their own treatment.

The concept of patient autonomy—letting patients decide what happens to their bodies—becomes central in modern bioethics through informed consent and patient rights. Those ideas were developed after the traditional oath and are not the primary focus of its older formulations. So, the correct understanding is that the oath is not primarily about patients’ rights to decide their own care.