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In the next few paragraphs, I will try to establish a logical argument that medical profession should be refrained from economic laws. You are always welcome to argue back the rebuttal if you wish.

Human beings can be seduced by money. Physicians are human, so they, too, can be seduced by money.

It's a fact that a business is successful when it is carried out in the shortest time with the largest quantity of supply for more profit. This is the nature of business. If medicine is a business, then the only thing that a physician should care about is how he or she can visit the largest number of patients in the shortest possible time in order to increase profit. If medicine is treated as a business, it follows that patients can be treated as commodities and that economic laws should be applied to medicine.

Profit

According to economic laws, there is supply and demand along with competition in a non-monopoly system. Economic laws explain that there should be more demand for more supply in order to increase profit. In the case of doctor, the demand is the number of patients, and the supply is the number of visits they will pay.

If this is the rationale behind a medical practice, a physician is then automatically expected to wish for more demand (more patients). This is obviously an immoral wish because what makes a physician really happy is to see an ever-increasing number of prospective patients inhabiting the Earth. As a result, prevention (the best medical practice), becomes an unrewarding economic policy because it decreases the rate of demand with obvious consequences.

Competition is another economic factor, which makes everything more confusing in a medical business. On one hand, owing to the fact of competition, a physician should promote the quality of his or her supply. On the other hand, a highly qualitative medical service increases the rate of good general health, which conversely decreases the number of demands (fewer patients) followed by less profit. Therefore, physician is obliged to increase the price of supply, which consequently eliminates the so-called poor who can't afford the high cost. This is when medicine abandons the poor, being secure in the knowledge that there are always rich patients to fill the physicians coffers. In fact, this is a great deal for physicians' because they have less responsibility by supplying for less demand with a higher price.

The major profit in car manufacturing comes from selling auto parts. This means if a company produces reliable cars, it cannot expect a large enough market for spare parts to realize a reasonable profit. So logically, a car manufacturer is obliged to make cars with a controlled quality, able to compete in the market place, but at the same time proven to be unreliable enough to need plenty of spare parts.

Now, let's apply this analogy to our case of the doctor. A doctor will try to do his best for his patients as far as competition allows, because, after all, the physician should leave room for the frequent return of patients for further profit.

In the world of business, we consider profit as a legitimate cost. Is medicine really a business? Are patients living commodities to whom one can apply only a certain medical procedure either by writing a prescription or performing surgery? Or is there more to the profession of healing where by humans, being social and conscious animals with a great many emotions, require more than just a medical procedure?

Isn't it true that many diseases are psychosomatic in which good advice and a sympathetic approach can be of more help to a patient than just a medical procedure? Isn't it true that stress causes certain cancers and that eliminating stress could be the best treatment for a patient? But to have a sympathetic approach or to reduce stress, a physician should take time to communicate with his patient.

Business

If medicine is a business, then time is profit and no physician can afford to waste it in establishing a good communication with his patients. If it takes 10 minutes to suture up a laceration for the same price as sympathetic medical counselling for one hour, then of course it's preferable to do the suture. Isn't it true that laughter and a happy feeling make the brain release natural pain killer like endorphin and enkephalin chief complaint of any patient? But if medicine is a business and a physician is a businessman, then time is profit, which cannot be wasted in making a patient feel happy.

To me, a physician should be a servant, not an entrepreneur. It is the nature of medicine in which the measure of that a physician does is humanity, not money and profit. If one thinks that it is the other way, then one is definitely in the wrong profession. And last, but not least, the desire to “make a buck” in medicine is immoral. Therefore, if medicine is a business, why bother with Hippocratic oath. What do you think?

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