Questão 18 - ACAFE Medicina - Verão 2022/1

Text is one of the modern versions (not the classical one) of the Hippocratic Oath, an oath of ethics historically taken by physicians and one of the most widely known of Greek medical texts. Read it carefully and answer the question.

 

    THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH

 

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: 
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such 
knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. 
[5] I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of 
overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. 
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and 
understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. 
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are 
[10] needed for a patient's recovery. 
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. 
Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. 
But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great 
humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. 
[15] I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness 
may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I 
am to care adequately for the sick. 
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. 
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, 
[20] those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. 
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection 
thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience 
the joy of healing those who seek my help. 

 

Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used 
[25] in many medical schools today.

(Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html - retrieved on September 24, 2021)

What meaning do the words "outweigh" (line 8) and "frailty" (line 14) respectively give to the sentences in which they are inserted?