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September 5, 2007
Noblesse oblige? The reputation of a profession
Discussant: Wolter Brands, DDS, JD, PhD, Senior Visiting Fellow at CHPE. Dr. Brands is a part-time dentist with his own practice, a judge in the civil section court of Utrecht, Netherlands, and an associate professor at the University Medical Center in Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007, 3:30-4:30 p.m.
Center for Health Policy and Ethics Conference Room
Moderator: Jos VM Welie, PhD, Professor, CHPE
The primary purpose of professional disciplinary procedures is to maintain the reputation of the profession and to protect the public. Generally, professional boards discipline health care providers when the latter have violated standards of good medical practice. However, research shows that many U.S. dentists have been disciplined by licensing boards solely because of a previous criminal conviction or an act of socially unacceptable behavior that at first glance had nothing to do with the practice of dentistry itself. This seems unfair. With the aid of several real-life cases, we will discuss which criminal or socially undesirable behaviors do indeed impact the reputation of the profession and in which cases this connection was doubtful or absent altogether.