“Professionals” – doctors, lawyers, engineers and others enjoy a privilege the rest of us do not: Self Regulation.
In many jurisdictions, including North America, entrance into professions is controlled by professional associations, ostensibly to ensure honourable ethics and high standards of performance. Sounds great.
On the other hand, there are often mild rumblings going the rounds that these associations do more protecting their members from the consequences of their failures and moral mis-steps than protecting the public from lesser-achieving non-members.
Perhaps these associations should be replaced by government regulation and lay bureaucracy. Still funded through license fees, but without the “brotherhood” that makes the rest of us lesser beings whose issues are trivialized and whose complaints are put down to ignorance.
A recent example comes from the police investigation into Matthew Perry’s death. This chilling paragraph from the Wall Street Journal:
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” read a text from one doctor, who was arrested last week, to another as the two men discussed how much to charge. The fellow doctor he was texting signed a plea agreement for conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.
‘Nuff said.