Soteria: deliverance from harm?

Soteria is the goddess of safety, deliverance and the prevention of harm in Greek mythology [1], who seemingly inspired the name of the ongoing long-term follow-up study of sotatercept for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) [2]. The Greek physician Hippocrates was one of the first to remark on harm in medicine, but is often incorrectly ascribed the axiom primum non nocere: “first, do no harm” [3], which at face value oversimplifies balancing potential risks and benefits in clinical decision-making. The first use of the exact phrase primum non nocere, by surgeon Lewis Stimson in 1879 [3, 4], perhaps best embodies the approach to avoidance of harm: