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Jann Murray-Garcia, MD, MPH
University of California, San Francisco

JAMA. 1997;278(1):20.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—Drs McArthur and Moore¹ present an important and timely discussion of the tension between the professional and commercial traditions in health care delivery and of the need for a national agency to monitor this antagonistic state. However, I disagree with their implicit notion that physicians refused to yield to commercial pressures until only recently forced to do so in the present era of managed care and cost containment. Respecting the existence of the physician "who values the patient's welfare above his or her own," the annals of American medicine reveal that many physicians both individually and collectively often deliberately sought to maximize their financial gain at the expense of patients, nonphysician practitioners, and the public.^2,3

This fact drives the urgent concern for minority populations who are at particular risk for substandard care at a time when physicians are more intensely pressured to protect their own . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Margaret A. Winker, MD, Senior Editor, and Phil B. Fontanarosa, MD, Senior Editor.

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