Some thoughts.....

As I was reading your blogs this morning, which were excellent, by the way, I had some thoughts....

A lot of you, in regards to Oath, compared our Oath to that of a doctor, a lawyer, or the President. You're right, we all take some kind of Oath and make a commitment to uphold certain values. We let society know what they should expect from us, and it is our responsibility to make that happen and act according to those values and expectations.

When Bill Clinton did not uphold his Oath and did not act true to his word, he was impeached from office.... Obama has been questioned for not following through on some things he promised he would, and he is always "on trial", in a sense, in the media.... A doctor doesn't do what he/she is supposed to, and his/her license is up for suspension.... A doctor is found guilty of malpractice and is held accountable in the amount of millions of dollars.....A lawyer doesn't uphold their word with a client and or breaks confidentiality with a case, he/she is dis-barred.

I think you get the point.

So my thoughts.... We talk about how we are held accountable and often scrutinized in the media because we don't uphold our values and do not act on what we said we do. We do not follow our oath....

What consequences do we face?
Are we removed from our organization?
Are we asked to give back our letters and our badge?

I think we all realize that we don't always uphold our vlaues and stay true to the Oath we swore to, but what do we do about that? Who holds us accountable? So what if we break an Oath? Do we just "look bad" or is it more?

I challenge you all to think about this. You all mentioned the consequences of acting outside of an Oath that you took in all of these other contexts, but what about in our community? What are the consequences? Are there any? Are they enough?

I think it is time we start to hold each other a bit more accountable....We don't let our political representatives or our health care professionals get away with it (going against their word), why do we let our brothers and sisters?

That was a lot of questions, but I have a lot of thoughts right now.