Abstract: Do doctors and other medical staff have an obligation to treat those who need their help? This paper assumes no legal or contractual obligations but attempts to discover whether there is any general moral obligation to treat those in need. In particular the questions of whether or not the obligation that falls on medical staff is different from that of others and of whether doctors are more blameworthy than others if they fail to treat patients are examined. Finally we look at the question of the burden of this obligation and at the responsibility of society to mitigate its hardships.The question of a doctor's moral obligation to do something for a patient was raised by G.E.M. Anscombe in a commentary on an article by John Harris, "Ethical problems in the management of some severely handicapped children," in the September 1981 issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. Harris considers whether there is a general obligation to treat, whether this obligation is different for medical staff than for others, and whether doctors are more blameworthy than others if they fail to treat those in need. He also looks at the question of sharing the burdens this obligation creates and identifies the prolongation of life as the clearest and most important obligation. In a commentary, Davis differentiates between a doctor's duty to society in general and his contractual obligations to an individual patient.