BLOGSCAN - A Less Honorable Career Choice than Stone-Masonry

One of my favorite lines from the original Star Trek was by "Bones," the physician, when asked to patch up an alien, silicon-based creature, "I'm a doctor, not a stone-mason." Of course, there is nothing dishonorable about being a stone-mason. But on the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma blog, Howard Brody notes an outraged article by a physician about medicine's current relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. After noting multiple anecdotes of physicians' grubbing goodies from drug reps, he concluded, "we are physicians, not ...." The final word, of course, was a less honorable career option than stone-masonry.