Professional associations adhere to the strictest standards of ethics. I
know because I belong to a few of them. They all have rigorous codes of ethics
that professionals must abide by. I also know that bankers, lawyers, teachers,
accountants, Edward Snowden and Lance Armstrong have codes of
ethics. Even the Miami-Dade City Commission has a code of ethics, but
unfortunately nobody can find it since the FBI left a mess in their last raid.
They do have it though, and it is in three languages: Tonkawa, Etchemin, and
Hialehan. This is how old it is, which explains why nobody used it.
This ethics business can be very trying, especially when you
work in stressful jobs like accounting, law, medicine, and teaching. Codes of
ethics demand respectful treatment of your clients at all times, and under all
circumstances. Accountants, for example, would never tell a client “you are
running the biggest scheme in the history of forensic accounting.” Instead,
they are going to write a report to the Board stating that “a fiduciary audit revealed
a larger than expected shrinkage in the accrued income collateralized with
tangible assets which has resulted in a smaller than expected WACC (weighted
average costs of capital), leading to large sums of money deposited in suspense
accounts which were securitized against promissory notes and future taxation used
to defray costs of doing business in certain parts of South Florida. Computer
models based on SWOT analyses predict that outside agencies will show interest
in your business.”
TRANSLATION: You should stop bribing city commissioners and
start paying taxes or you will be in jail in 3 to 5 months.
Teachers are also very respectful professionals. They
prepare for months for parent-teacher interview. Some excerpts:
GRADE 11 TEACHER: Jordan’s performance in the SMRT-VII has
remained stable since the last time he was evaluated.
TRANSLATION: He is still as dumb as he was in grade 2.
GRADE 3 TEACHER: Suzie is extremely peripatetic and shows
great curiosity towards people and events unrelated to the subject matter at
hand.
TRANSLATION: If you don’t put her on Ritalin I will.
Predictably, lawyers have the strictest code of ethics. This
is why they reassure you that if they sue 734 innocent people on your behalf
and by random chance the judge falls asleep during the proceedings and they win
3 cases, they will share with you 0.0000001% of the money. After taxes,
photocopying, paper clips, faxes, office parties, late night pizza parties, and
courier expenses, they guarantee to pay you 0.00000000000001% of the net
profits. This is the only profession that guarantees 0.000000000001% of
anything. No questions or medical exams required. In contrast, most other
professions require you to pay them.
Take doctors for example. Before you even said what was
wrong with you, a smiling assistant will invite you to a little booth, take an
X ray of all your bank accounts, conduct a physical examination of all your
credit cards, insert a finger in your wallet to extract your driver’s license
and your health insurance card, and review the chart of payments on your
mortgage. She will also perform a stress test on your 401 K account, and check
the pressure in the tires of your car, just to be sure there is something of
worth in case the insurance company denies your claim, which happens 99% of the
time. By the time you see the doctor your blood pressure is so high that the
insurance company is bound to reject your claim, leaving the smiling clerk with
no choice but to impound your car and clean up your 401 K.
Health Insurance Companies are very explicit in their insistence
on equality: All patients will be treated the same. No matter what the ailment
is, your ability to pay, or the policy you have. Before the doctor sees you,
everyone must sign 29 forms with very small font. They don’t pressure you to
sign the form however. You can take your time. At an average speed of 3 minutes
per page, it will take you 5 hours to read the forms they give you. Allowing
for lunch and bathroom breaks, you are lucky if you see the doctor at 5 pm,
provided you got there at 6 am. Doctors, however, will never pressure anybody
to sign anything they don’t understand. The American Medical Association is
very explicit about that. You don’t have to sign anything you don’t feel
comfortable with. You will never see a doctor in your life if you choose to
read all the forms, but patient autonomy must be respected at all times.
Doctors do all that to prevent any harm, and more. They will
do whatever it takes to prevent you from buying prescription drugs from unknown
countries like Canada, or going to India to receive medical treatment. The AMA
is against medical tourism. I do have to agree with them on the India thing. A
friend of mine went to India to have a heart operation and returned with a sex transplant instead. Doctors are obliged to warn you against things like that.
