Attitudinal and Legal Factors in Professional Advertising

This Article is concerned with advertising by professionals, a phenomenon which has taken on greater importance and become more controversial as its impact has grown over the past decade. Part II of this Article discusses the legal precedents which permitted the development of professional advertising in general. In Part III the body of literature concerning professional and consumer attitudes towards promotional behavior is reviewed. Part IV presents and evaluates the initial results of a survey of plastic surgeons. The promotional attitudes of plastic surgeons are an especially interesting subject of study, as advertising by this medical sub-specialty presents in a very clear way some of the problematic issues inherent in the area