INSTITUTIONAL ETHICS

Abstract

Silver, professor emeritus of public health at Yale University, comments on the subject of physicians and public accountability in the current era of malpractice claims, corporate medicine, and economic controls on the delivery of care in the U.S. He faults physician organizations for their failure to ensure the competence and "reliability" of their members, and urges medical associations and teaching medical institutions to take steps to improve continuing medical education and to encourage doctors to engage in rigorous self scrutiny.