Doctors\u27 Conflicts of Interest (& Altruism) in the United States and Great Britain

Patients often react with anxiety, not to mention indignation, to the notion that physicians derive profits from the practice of medicine.1 Could financial self-interest possibly sully their own doctors\u27 advice? Professor Marc Rodwin\u27s Medicine, Money & Morals: Physicians\u27 Conflicts of Interest2 answers that question in the affirmative, giving comprehensive chapter and verse to support his conclusion. When doctors have the dominant hand in directing spending for more than 14% of this nation\u27s GNP, it would probably be naive to expect otherwise.3 But whatever happened to the medical profession\u27s traditional altruism and to its ethical obligation to avoid financial conflicts of interest?4 And how much clinical judgment is distorted by *688 incentives for physicians to realize secondary economic gain5 through their patients\u27 medical problems