O'Connor Mike
St George Private Hospital, Sydney.
J Law Med. 2009 Dec;17(3):426-38.
A significant minority of the tortured prisoners who survive report that a doctor was present during their torture. Yet few medical practitioners are ever criminally prosecuted or even disciplined by their regulatory bodies. Can such gross violations of the Hippocratic Code be so easily ignored or are these doctors carefully shielded from detection and prosecution by a grateful state? Mostly doctors act to vet prisoners for their capacity to withstand the torture or resuscitate them to allow torture and interrogation to continue. However, on occasion, the "healers" may be the actual torturers as happened in Russian psychoprisons in the latter part of the 20th century. This article argues that the de facto immunity which complicit doctors currently appear to enjoy must be stripped away and replaced by effective processes to detect and then prosecute criminal behaviour. This will require widespread reporting of cases and action by international bodies, including non-government organisations. Prevention is clearly preferable and this will require improvements in undergraduate and graduate medical education about international humanitarian and human rights law. There is evidence that many medical faculties pay scant attention to this education and their students graduate with serious flaws in their understanding and attitudes towards human rights. Education should target "doctors at risk" in prisons, armed forces and the police. It should address professional behaviour which tolerates or even protects cultures of abuse. A code of professional conduct would assist "doctors at risk" to resist overtures for them to become complicit in torture, Medical Practice Acts should include statements on respecting human rights when defining good professional conduct. Doctors who become complicit in torture betray their profession. Swift action should be taken to stop such abuses and perpetrators should receive strong disciplinary action from regulatory bodies.
