Views of medicine as a profession

In the same issue as an editorial that explicitly asks “Is medicine still a profession?”1 appear 2 articles that seem to answer this question in the negative, considering that the controversial practices of the Don Coleman clinic in Vancouver2 seem to be agreed upon by “two-tier-Tony” (Canada's new minister of health, Tony Clement)3 and are to spread across all of Canada.

The gradual change of medicine from a profession of dedicated and principled physicians, who in times of war have put their health and their own lives in danger while unconditionally serving the wounded of all nations and of all creeds, into a profit-oriented industry may represent a reflection of the profit-oriented politics of foreign affairs, as was candidly admitted by Sir Winston Churchill in 1946 on the occasion of his visit with the former US president H.S. Truman and a speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Mo.

We still have not learned the lessons of history, and we are paying a bitter price for it in politics and in medicine. Our opinions about private and state-controlled health care may differ, but it is high time to realize that the way medicine is practised depends on our own conduct. If we truly believe in basic unalienable principles, we have no choice but to act upon them. Salus aegroti suprema lex — the welfare of the patient should be the ultimate goal of our professional services. Then, state and private health care could peacefully coexist because both would have the welfare of patients in mind.