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Doctors' image mirrors reality

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-30 07:45

The notorious image of doctors taking bribes from patients needs to be addressed, says an article on www.rednet.cn. Excerpts:

Doctors were ranked first in a recent survey for violating professional ethics.

Doctors have been widely criticized by the public in recent years and that's also one of the compelling factors for the reform of China's healthcare system. The respondents of the survey have their reason to be dissatisfied with doctors.

As a Beijing-based doctor said, he declined all the red packets given by patients' relatives during the initial period of his work as a doctor, only to find that his colleagues deemed him a maverick and patients feared to invite him to do the operation. Later on, he had to take bribes from patients, too.

The rampant disregard of professional integrity among doctors is largely because of the industry-wide misleading practice rather than individual corruption. Seduced by commercialisation, hospitals have directly linked the bottom line with personal incomes, which in turn forces doctors to abandon rofessional ethics and resort to profit maximization. The obvious loss of professional integrity in the medical circles is rarely seen in other spheres, and that's why the public ranked doctors as the worst offenders when it comes to violation of professional ethics.

When the society is infected with the affliction of taking bribes through abuse of power, such as the political power of government officials and law-enforcing power of policemen, doctors can hardly be different.

Doctors can get bribes more easily than people in other occupations for they tend the health and life of a patient. Now the taking of bribes is so common among doctors that if a doctor refuses to take the bribe before operating on a patient, the relatives of the patient may get upset and start worrying whether he would do his best to save the patient's life.

Doctors should reflect upon this malpractice and find ways to change their image when healthcare reform is a national priority.

(China Daily 04/30/2009 page9)