Soviet medical ethics (1917-1991)

Russian medical ethics bears a heavy mark of seven decades of the communist regime. In 1918 the Health Care Commissariat (ministry) was formed. It was headed by Nikolai Semashko (1874-1949) who claimed that "the ethics of the Soviet physician is an ethics of our socialist motherland, an ethics of a builder of communist society; it is equal to communist moral". "Medical ethics" had been avoided until the late 1930s when it was replaced by "medical (or surgical) deontology". This "deontological" period started with "Problems of surgical deontology" written by N. Petrov, a surgeon, and lasted for almost half a century until "medical deontology" was abandoned in favor of "bioethics" in post-communist Russia. There have been five All-Union conferences on medical deontology since 1969. The story of the emergence of "The Oath of a Soviet Physician" is briefly described. The text of this Oath was approved by a special decree of the Soviet Parliament in 1971. Each graduate of medical school in USSR was obliged to take this Oath when receiving his or her medical diploma. It is concluded that such ideas of zemstvo medicine as universal access to health care and condemnation of private practice were put into practice under the communist regime.