Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names. First Do No Harm: When Financing Health Care Becomes Unethical We attribute the oldest text of ethics in Western medical practice to Hippocrates (460-370 A.D.), a Greek physician whose oath instructs, “I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing.” Most doctors, having pledged that oath upon entering the profession, recall best its later paraphrasing primum non nocere , first do no harm. As physicians at UVA Health and educators at the University of Virginia, we were appalled by the revelations of the aggressive, pitiless billing and collections practices, first reported in The Washington Post based on an investigation by Kaiser Health News (“ ‘UVA Has Ruined Us’: Health System Sues Thousands Of Patients, Seizing Paychecks And Claiming Home...
