harm. in the 1960s, the hippocratic oath was changed to require "utmost respect for human life from its beginning", making it a more secular obligation, not to be taken in the presence of any gods, but before only other people. when the oath was rewritten in 1964 by louis lasagna, academic dean of the school of medicine at tufts university, the prayer was omitted, and that version has been widely accepted and is still in use today by many us medical schools: 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. i will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures 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 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 and save life wherever possible within reason; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. above all, i must not play at god. 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, 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. in a 1989 survey of 126 us medical schools, only three of them reported use of the original oath, while thirty-three used the declaration of geneva, sixty-seven used a modified hippocratic oath, four used the oath of maimonides, one used a covenant, eight used another oath, one used an unknown oath, and two did not use any kind of oath. seven medical schools did not reply to the survey. as of 1993, only 14% of medical oaths prohibited euthanasia, and only 8% prohibited abortion. in a 2000 survey of us medical schools, all of the then extant medical schools administered some type of profession oath. among schools of modern medicine, sixty-two of 122 used the hippocratic oath, or a modified version of it. the other sixty schools used the original or modified declaration of geneva, oath of maimonides, or an oath authored by students and or faculty. all nineteen osteopathic schools used the osteopathic oath. in france, it is common for new medical graduates to sign a written oath. in 1995, sir joseph rotblat, in his acceptance speech for the nobel peace prize, suggested a hippocratic oath for scientists. in 2007 us citizen rafiq abdus sabir was convicted for making a pledge to al qaeda thus agreeing to provide medical aid to wounded terrorists. as of 2018 all us medical school graduates made some form of public oath but none used the original hippocratic oath. a modified form or an oath unique to that school is often used. a review of 18 of these oaths was criticized for their wide variability: "consistency would help society see that physicians are members of a profession that's committed to a shared set of essential ethical values." violation there is no direct punishment for breaking the hippocratic oath, although an arguable equivalent in modern times is medical malpractice, which carries a wide range of punishments, from legal action to civil penalties. in the united states, several major judicial decisions have made reference to the classical hippocratic oath, either upholding or dismissing its bounds for medical ethics: roe v. wade, washington v. harper, compassion in dying v. state of washington (1996), and thorburn v. department of corrections (1998). in antiquity, the punishment for breaking the hippocratic oath could range from a penalty to losing the right to practice medicine. in 2022, a college in the indian state of tamil nadu saw a batch of medical students undertaking a sanskrit oath by the name of ancient sage physician maharishi charak instead of the hippocratic oath. the state government subsequently dismissed the dean of the madurai medical college for this act.