Kevorkian criticizes the Hippocratic tradition which bans the prescription of a lethal medication. He sees this prohibition as potentially bringing harm to a suffering patient. However, his advocacy of physician-assisted suicide can be seen as the polarity of abandonment of the suffering patient rather than an antidote to it. Both positions involve an outcome of physician removal which can be constrasted to Maimonide’s command to the physician to watch over the life & death of his patients.