In Gallup’s annual survey on the honesty and ethics of various professionals, lawyers ranked near the bottom, along with advertisers and car salesmen.
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As a fellow MD, I am glad we rank as high as we do. But I can’t really argue with the grade school teachers being at the top of the list.
What a bunch of self-congratulatory nonsense. Doctors rank so high because of their successful marketing. In order to get patients–i.e., people willing to be drugged, made unconscious, rendered naked and vulnerable, doctors have to market themselves as trustworthy. Who would ever go to one otherwise?
Whether they are TRULY trustworthy is a more difficult question. Given the high rate of medical error (remember the Institute for Medicine’s study placing doctors right behind cars as the leading cause of death in the U.S.?), this is an open question. Further, given doctors’ resistance to open performance standards, it is even more of a question.
Lawyers, except to their own clients, have no economic or “ethical”)need to appear trustworthy. In fact, the opposite is true. We want our lawyers to be zealous, clever, even devious when looking after our interests.
So, doctors, get a little economic self-realization and stop patting yourselves on your collective white-coated backs. You’re a business, just like anyother.
What? TV journalists scored higher than us print guys? I guess people don’t judge a 30-second soundbite as critically as an 800-word article.
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