I don't see much difference between an agricultural company that uses potentially hazardous crop treatments, to an oil company which gradually destroys the earth, to a cigarette company which continues to produce and sell hazardous products to a drug company that sells a drug with significant side-effects and questionable benefits.

All of those see their profit as their goal and care very little about potential damage which can be a result of it.

The farmers have a responsibility for using those crops, the owners of gas stations have the responsibility for dispensing this oil, small merchants have responsibility for selling cigarettes and physicians have responsibility for prescribing those medications to their patients.

Consumers have the responsibility when they buy those crops, without questioning their source, or when they buy gasoline or when they take medications.

There are certain professions which society sees as protected from litigation-such as judges and even politicians (unless they have performed a serious crime). This should have been so for physicians. Physicians should have been made to know and understand that they have an ultimate responsibility for the life and well-being of their patients which is not and can not be translated to profit or money.

But, unfortunately this is not so. Patients are not seen as people who are suffering and need help, but as "clients" and as "clients" they should be given a good deal for their money. And if they don't get what they want, they will be compensated. When the death of a child can be translated into money, it become a loss of profit, and not a horrible tragedy.

A young man was admitted to the hospital in a grave state. He had a very rare form of leukemia. He was stuporotic with significant metabolic disturbances. The hematology fellow failed to diagnose his illness properly because of a very unusual presentation, but feeling uncomfortable about this patient she called her attending who came immediately.
He diagnosed the disease correctly, did a few more tests and started chemotherapy ASAP. The patient and his wife sighed an informed consent.
This excellent physician took care of him for the next few years and clearly saved his life. He came to see him day and night, got him through serious and life-threatening complications of the aggressive treatment he was given.
5 years later, the patient was alive and well and stopped coming for follow-up visits. His physician received a letter from his lawyer that he is suing him for not obtaining semen prior to treatment with chemotherapy. He now only has one child and can not have any more children.
It's not that there is some treatment he can receive which costs a lot of money that will enable him to have another child (I would be fine with him getting money for that), and it is not that he is losing any profit from not having another child (from my personal experience children cost money and don't bring profit). How can money compensate for what he has lost? and should this excellent physician instead of doing everything possible to save his life during that night done everything possible to save his semen?
I know this specific physician is not going to change the way he takes care of his patients, but I know how shocked he was to see a letter from the lawyer of a patient whose life he saved.

I know excellent physicians, who after similar experiences have started practicing defensive medicine. They no longer see their patients, as patients but as potential rivals in court. They know that if they do not stick to the "guidelines" (even if the think they are wrong) they can be sued.

Some of those "guidelines" and "quality parameters" are the result of lobbying of drug companies and based on very little evidence. Most physicians don't have the courage or are not interested in going against the flow. It is much easier to comply with the rules and have nice laminated cards in their pockets that tell them what to do.

"personalized medicine", is a nice buzz-word that everyone is glad to use, but physicians are discouraged from deciding on the best patient-tailored treatment for their specific patient.

There are still outstanding physicians who manage to work properly despite all those obstacles, but they are becoming more of the exception than the rule.

Equating good patient care with profit is a recipe for disaster.