Merrill Goozner is an award-winning journalist and author of “The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs” who writes regularly at Gooznews.com.
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The front page of the Sunday New York Times informs readers that two major teaching hospitals in Boston affiliated with Harvard Medical School are about to limit senior officials to $5,000 a day for serving on corporate boards of directors. The policy was not adopted because it was perceived as unethical to take money from self-interested corporations while serving a public purpose (teaching new doctors) or meeting their professional responsibilities (always putting the interests of patients first). Rather, it was perceived as unseemly to forbid underlings from taking speakers bureaus fees from drug companies (a new policy) while they earned $200,000 a year or more by serving as academic window-dressing on the boards of directors at for-profit firms, whose legally-mandated fiduciary responsibilities are to stockholders, not the public or patients.
Meanwhile, on the paper’s op-ed page, the public editor informs readers that several freelancers have been banished from the paper for taking money from sources. The most prominent example involved a Harvard business school professor-turned-columnist who accepted plane tickets and lodging from a corporation (3M) she wrote about.
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These are concrete examples of ethics in action at leading institutions in two of the nation’s most visible professions. Now let’s turn to the public’s perception of these two professions.
According to the latest Gallup poll on the subject (November 2008), physicians remain among the nation’s most trusted professionals, ranking fourth behind nurses, pharmacists and high school teachers. A hefty 64 percent of the public rated physicians either high or very high for honesty and ethics. Just 6 percent perceived them as having low or very low ethical standards.
On the other hand, journalists, for whom taking money from corporations is a firing offense at most organizations, ranked fairly low in terms of public perceptions. Just 25 percent gave journos high marks for honesty and ethics, while 31 percent rated them low or very low on the ethical scales of justice.
Go figure.
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If you’re wondering who ranked lowest in public esteem for honesty and ethics, the list will come as no surprise. From the bottom (low or very low percent): Lobbyists (64%); Telemarketers (60%); Car Salesmen (54%); Congressmen (46%); Stockbrokers (45%); Advertising practitioners (38%); and Business Executives (37%).
